Live Review: Idles - Alexandra Palace, London 29/11/2024
Idles bring their menacing energy on a colossal night at Ally Pally.
Just a week after Fontaines DC stormed Ally Pally, seeing them hailed as the best performance of 2024 by the best band of the year, Idles step up to the plate and defiantly make it their own on a palpably feverish Friday night in the heart of North London.
Both bands have had their Love and Romance themed albums top the chart this year, bringing a distinct change in direction from their previous records. Idles gained Grammy nominations for ‘Tangk’ their fifth album, up for best rock album, while the single ‘Gift Horse’ will undoubtedly compete with renowned acts such as Green Day, Pearl Jam and The Black Keys for best rock song, and are up against fierce competition with Fontaines DC in both categories- with ‘Romance’ and ‘Starburster’.
Strong support comes from Lambrini Girls- a Brighton based duo who have recently been named as one to watch by The Guardian. Full of punk spirit with singer Phoebe getting into the crowd for the final song ‘Craig David’ encouraging the crowd to let out their anger and repeat after her “Prince Andrew is a sweaty nonce” which gets wild laughter from a young crowd who clearly wholeheartedly agree.
Willy J Healey has been hailed as the musician’s favourite musician, feted by Idles Joe Talbot, Florence Welsh, Alex Turner and Jamie T. A mix of Americana and punk the shirtless Willy charms the crowd, many also sporting his tattooed bare chest and beanie combination. His stripped back gravely voice made for a mellow warm up for what was to follow.
Idles enter the stage they last graced in 2019 to one of their most ominous songs ‘IDEA 01’ evoking a real sense of impending doom with creepy keyboard and Joe Talbot stalking the stage like an angry flamingo, flexing his muscles and crooning the words: ‘These are the things you lost in the fire, or something’. Second song ‘Colossus’ continues the immensely menacing mood with a raw feeling that the roof is about to be blown off the Grand Hall as a pumped up crowd’s fists thrusted aloft and screaming aggressively along to the refrain: ‘And it goes and it goes and it goes’.
The set reaches an early crescendo with ‘Gift Horse’ providing the most powerful song from ‘Tangk’ with Joe ensuring maximum energy by instructing the immense crowd to split down the middle all the way to the sound stage, and then collide into each other in a powerful moment of both aggression and love.
This juxtaposition is shown by Joe, who is a frontman constantly bristling with fury and aggression, but with words full of love and compassion- apart from his ferocious hate towards the King or the toxic Tory party. He has huge onstage charisma and has honed his stage ritual to perfection in huge venues such as this. His caring side is shown during the extended intro to ‘Car Crash’ where the song was about to burst into life he spotted a medical emergency in the crowd and halted the performance. With genuine concern he oversaw the situation and commended the crowd for looking out for each other and praising the NHS, before launching into the visceral ‘Car Crash’.
In a powerful moment Joe declared that he wrote a song dedicated to his friend who shared with him that he had depression, something that changed his life profoundly and taught him empathy, launching into ‘Samaritans’, a song that confronts toxic masculinity, released in 2018 and still sounding just as relevant to this day. The lyrics ‘The mask of masculinity is a mask that’s wearing me’ and ‘I’m a real boy and I’ll cry, I love myself and I want to try’ is followed by a clever riff on Nirvana’s ‘I Hate Myself And I Want To Die’
To add to the spectacle, guitarists Mark and Lee dove into the crowd three times, including a memorable crowd surf from Mark. This was a band leaving nothing in the locker and charging through a two hour, twenty four song playlist with no breaks and unusually without an encore. Eschewing their slower songs this was a real burst of power and energy from the band, leaving the crowd breathless. Only slight respite came with the second song from the end with a rather incongruous version of Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is you’ which was still delivered with their typical edge. In a very candid parting message to the crowd, Joe told the devoted crowd “You’ve been perfect, we’ve been Idles– Auf Wiedersehen,” signing off in superb style.
Words by Brendan Sharp
Photography by Harry Wassell
