Savages is one of the numerous bands playing at FYF Fest in 2 weeks. I don’t know if I will have the opportunity to see them, there are about 60 bands to catch in 2 day, but the all-female band left a strong impression on me when I had the chance to catch attend their show at the El Rey, two years ago… These girls were dark, aggressive, and a bit authoritarian? They actually scared me a bit…
When I go to a show without knowing much about the band and the music, I leave it that way, I do my homework afterwards because I don’t want my live experience to be influenced by whatever I read. I went to The Savages’ second night at the El Rey without knowing much about the British all-female quartet, and it was for the best and the worst: for the best because I got a few slaps in the face and punches in the stomach without any warning, and for the worst because singer Jehnny Beth did ‘savagely’ look at my camera a few times – not that she was really seeing it, the place was so dark – but she looked pissed off.
If I had done my homework in advance I would have learnt that the Savages had posted a sign around a Seattle venue a few months ago, saying ‘WE BELIEVE THAT THE USE OF PHONES TO FILM AND TAKE PICTURES DURING A GIG PREVENTS ALL OF US FROM TOTALLY IMMERSING OURSELVES. LET’S MAKE THIS EVENING SPECIAL. SILENCE YOUR PHONES’… All caps, I know that Sufjan Stevens was recently complaining about the font used on their album, but this is what you get with the Savages, everything is all caps, bold and yelling at your face. The ‘Silence your phones’ could also be seen as part of a growing trend among indie bands and beyond (see Iman’s post on She and Him!) but this is different here, we have to take it as an obvious reference to the philosophy behind their debut album ‘Silence Yourself’.
However, I didn’t see anything like this sign at the El Rey, and whatever Jehnny Beth thought when she saw my camera, they didn’t need to ask people to immerse themselves in the music, as the thunderous darkness these women rapidly installed on stage had no precedent and didn’t let anyone breathe a minute or didn’t let anyone any time to look for a phone. The show was so intense and the atmosphere so dense and oppressive during their 12-song set, that, without any special effects that some bands use to install terror and coldness (fog machines or impressive outfits,…) the air we were breathing instantaneously lowered of a good 10 degrees.
Jehnny Beth – and this is mostly her I was looking at the whole time despite the excellent musicianship of her bandmates – had a fantastic and creepy presence on stage. With her very short hairdo and her dark allure, she was using her voice to stab the audience repeatedly, and she was moving her body like a feline animal in high heels, crouching all the time, shaking her arms as if she was about to get a running start, jump at someone’s throat and commit a crime. The result was visceral, violent and savage of course. They played the whole set in dim light, with some intense flash piercing the night at moment, intriguing me more and more at each song, creeping out the audience, building a strange and heavy atmosphere with a squeaking guitar played by Gemma Thompson, a dominant and pulsing bass played by Ayse Hassan and a furious drumming played by Fay Milton.
With their badass Joy Division ambiance and authoritarian attitude, they were captivating the public. Some people were standing still, totally hypnotized by Beth’s every move, others were bouncing like maniacs, following the almost-industrial and fast dance beats or the pulsing lugubrious rhythms of some songs. People have criticized them for constructing this fascinating and mysterious imagery inspired from many post-punk bands, reducing The Savages’ music to a pale copy of the past, but live, they were super impressive, each song building up a theatrical urgency, with an undeniable and dramatic fury sweating out throughout the show. Then there were the bold lyrics, I couldn’t make sense of everything, but the porn-sadomasochism-feministic imagery of certain songs did burst at everyone’s face with ‘Hit Me’ (‘I took a beating tonight/And that’s was the best I ever had’), or ‘She Will’ (‘She will forget her pain/She will come back again/Got hooked on loving hard/Forcing the slut out’). Seriously, Beth was delivering this sex-violence-consent with such fierce conviction on her high heels, that she seemed to be a threat for the entire male population. ‘Now that we have deconstructed everything, it’s time to put it all back together’ she said between ‘Husbands’ and ‘Fuckers’.
I couldn’t stop thinking, I didn’t know much about them, they have only released one album, and managed to sell out the El Rey theater two nights in a row? For a band which tells us to silence our phone and other devices, they have successfully manage to rapidly build a reputation, probably using these same devices! Still, the message was clear, delivered with a ferociously commanding tone and a self confidence, and if you look of the album artwork, you’ll read ‘if the world would shut up just for a while perhaps we would start hearing the distant rhythm of an angry young tune’… and this could not have been truer during ‘Shut up’! Even if all this isn’t genuine, even if the Savages are building piece by piece this faux Joy-Division-meets Fugazi sound, it was quite efficient: beside a few appreciative screams, I don’t think very few people dared to say a word on Wednesday night.
Setlist
City’s Full
I Am Here
Shut Up
Give Me a Gu
Strife
Waiting for a Sign
Flying to Berlin
No Face
She Will
Hit Me
Husbands
Fuckers
