Courageous and captivating: Interpol, Live in London

16 November 2018, 15:42 | Written by Cal Byrne

(Live)

(Interpol)

In some ways, a band playing in formal wear sits well within the Royal Albert Hall. This is what the architects would have envisioned after all; a proper show of respect from their American cousins when they come to town. However, appearances aside, this is not quite of offering they would have imagined.

Interpol play a set stocked fullwith old school classics, from the early noughties right through to their more fuller modern day sound. Silhouetted against an army of strip lights to his rear, Paul Banks casts a long shadow over the packed-out London crowd. The first utterance of “Rosemary...” from Antics-era classic "Evil" is all it takes to set the place off (and memories drift back to sweaty nights in cramped dancefloors).

But if Banks is the de facto frontman of the group, Daniel Kessler comes to the fore when the band play live. Constantly dancing around in his cropped-pants-with-socks look, the guitarist is always drawing the eye to his side of stage. His killer riffs on "Slow Hands" and "C’mere" also help.

New singles like "The Rover" or "If You Really Love Nothing" captivate but it's "Rest My Chemistry" that steals the night. As Sam Fogarino lays into his kit and Banks sings “I haven't slept for two days, I've bathed in nothing but sweat”, it's hard not to feel that this is a very different performance from what these Halls had initially been intended for.