‘I love Interpol!’ was heard in the middle of Paul Banks’ set at the FYF on Sunday night, ‘We love that band too!’ answered the guitarist with a smile, but it may have been the problem, this voice, this dark deep monochord voice is so strongly associated with Evil Rosemary and other Heinrich Maneuver, that you can’t forget about it. Despite all my efforts to try to find Paul Banks’ own musical identity, I couldn’t chase Interpol from my mind and that was his curse.
Is Interpol over? I hope not, the Julian Plenti character has apparently been abandoned, but Banks is still doing his own thing, with the same sinister sexy baritone over pulsating beats and dark music. Dressed in black and surrounded by three musicians, he delivered his set with a lot of seriousness and a sort of pitiless tone so typical of the New York band.
Banks was announcing most of the titles of his new songs with a rather austere presence, and he only let a smile light up his face during the last song! I am almost certain it was his first one. The sun was going down during his set, which was fitting him quite well, and everyone was watching and listening very quietly and respectfully.
He had also played the day before at an invitation-only show at Sonos Studio in Los Angeles, and both set featured songs from his second solo album simply called ‘Banks’ due October 23 on Matador.
The seven new songs were carrying the same dark-sad ambiance, with more vibrating guitars here, or more ascending victorious tone there, but there was no big surprise, I had already heard the one that I prefer, ‘Summertime is Coming’, and the rest of the new material hardly sounded like Interpol's leftovers; the tunes were sometimes poppier than Interpol’s famous hits, but, musically and lyrically they were definitively lacking the grandiose beauty of songs like ‘Slow Hands’ or the devastating sadness of ‘Wrecking Ball’ or ‘Pioneer to the Falls’.
‘He is so cute’, said a girl behind me, yeah, I couldn’t stop taking pictures, Paul Banks is like the Brad Pitt of the music business, and after all, he could sing the yellow pages that he would still have an audience.
Setlist
Skyscraper
The Base
I'll Sue You
Fun That We Have
Paid For That
Only If You Run
Arise, Awake
Over My Shoulder
Games For Days
Young Again