Rate this spellbinding cacophony

Battles – Live at the Koko, October 11th 2007

The Field Day event held at Victoria Park earlier this year was an interesting one. I’d been to music festivals for just one day before but not a one-day-only affair. The atmosphere was nice enough, the organisers made some mistakes but that’s only to be expected from an inaugural festival of this nature. The biggest let-down however was for Battles, the four-piece super-group and current darlings of alternative music circles, who were mystifyingly billed quite early on in proceedings and only given a 30 minute set. It proved to be a good performance in the end but they were having difficulties setting up in time and actually didn’t start until 20 minutes after their allotted time. You could tell they were tired however, the band seemed stressed and a bit wound-up, deservedly so in all fairness.

Their performance on the other hand at the Koko was the polar opposite in overall tone and mood. The band were absolutely staggering in their execution of impossibly tight piece after piece . It was relentless and spellbinding, uber-drummer John Stanier locking everything together like a huge sweaty anchor. Every member of the quartet seemed so much more energised than last time (including their stint at the Scala several months previously) and it was abundantly clear that they were enjoying the experience as much as the audience. While not being ones to rely on witty banter between pieces the mood was very much ‘up’ nonetheless. At one point Tyondai Braxton and Ian Williams, the team of not one but two dual-wielding guitar and keyboard virtuosos, seemed to have trouble getting Stanier’s attention to kick start the next section in their blistering rendition of Race: In. Never mind, there were smiles all round and the song just went on a little bit longer than was perhaps intended.

All in all, a blinding experience from the group that just get better and better with every second that passes.

Rock rating: 6 out of 7

Lack of cover versions means they get rated: 4 out of 7

Rated: 6 out of 7