Los Campesinos! : Live in 2008

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/loscampesinosmay14.jpg" alt=" " />It was the start of Los Campesinos!’s first “proper” U.S. tour, and “it’s got a lot to live up to” if it wants to match...

  The Cardiff-based band has been turning heads in the States since last year’s Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP (QRO review), but with the recent release of their first full-length, Hold On Now, Youngster… (QRO review), the fresh seven-piece have brought it to another level.  While there’s still some kinks to be worked out, after playing Hoboken on Wednesday, May 14th, Los Campesinos! look set to take American by storm.

Playing mostly off of Hold On Now, Los Campesinos! opened with the great “One!  Two!  Three!  Four!” starting count-off (each number shouted by a different member) for “Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats”, igniting things from the get-go.  It simmered down a bit with the slow opening to the following “Don’t Tell Me To Do The Math(s)” (also featured on Sticking Fingers), but that just meant it was more carrying when co-vocalist Aleks Campesinos (yes, they all go by that surname…) started in.  Her melodic tones provide a wonderful counterpoint to the twee shouts of fellow singer Gareth Campesinos.  The energy kept up through first Hold On Now single, “Death to Los Campesinos!”, which got an extra ‘group anthem’ effect when done by the entire band on the small Maxwell’s stage (QRO venue review).

Even when Los Campesinos! are playing things more heart-on-their-sleeve, their attitude is full-bore, bombastic even in the sad emotions, like with “This Is How You Spell, ‘HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics’” and “Drop It Doe Eyes”.  Whiny emo bands, take notice: This is how you sing about your young heartbreaks, unapologetic but energetic, not whiney but winning.  And it isn’t just Gareth who keeps a straight, honest demeanor throughout his odes, but the entire band.

The crowd at Maxwell’s was, unsurprisingly given the band’s youth, sound, and the all-ages nature of the venue, on the younger side, but there was actually a wide spectrum of ages on the stage floor (including one middle-aged fan who told Gareth, after the show, “I haven’t been to a concert here in fifteen years, but I came here for you guys…”).  Together, they all could form “The International Tweexcore Underground”, Los Campesinos!’s wonderful in-between, non-album single.  Unfortunately, the band didn’t pull out either of the b-side covers, Heavenly’s “C Is the Heavenly Option”, where Gareth and Aleks swap the male and female vocal parts (with Gareth singing about his boyfriend, and Aleks her girlfriend), and a hilarious version of Black Flag’s classic “Police Story”.

Gareth may have described “Knee Deep At the A.T.P.” as a sad song, and it is about your girlfriend going to the All Tomorrow’s Party Music Festival with someone else, but it still got the crowd moving.  Latest Hold On Now single, “My Year In Lists”, really took a step up live, but Los Campesinos! weren’t too proud to throw down Sticking Fingers’s “song by a band far better than us”, Pavement’s “Frontwards”.  However, the cover did feel like a bit of a step backward for the band, which doesn’t need to cover a classic indie band to separate them from the pack anymore.

Los Campesinos! playing Pavement’s Frontwards live at Maxwell’s, NJ:

Things were perhaps at their most heartfelt with the following “We Are All Accelerated Readers”, with Gareth and Aleks really harmonizing off each other.  But things return to the bombast with “…And We Exhale and Roll Our Eyes In Unison”, a live favorite of the band’s.

Los Campesinos! playing …And We Exhale and Roll Our Eyes In Unison live at Maxwell’s, NJ:

However, with Hold On Now and Sticking Fingers’s “You! Me! Dancing!”, Los Campesinos! began to experience serious technical difficulties.  For their first “proper” U.S. tour, as Gareth would later explain, the band got new gear over in America, so they wouldn’t have to keep paying to ferry everything across the Atlantic Ocean.  Unfortunately, some of that gear was a little too new, as guitarist Neil Campesinos’ pedal began to short out.  After the band started the beat for the rollicking “Dancing!”, Neil’s guitar went haywire.  However, the crowd and drummer Ollie Campesinos were able to hold the beat steady as Neil switched guitars, and “Dancing!” saw the front of the stage floor rock in an exuberant pseudo-mosh (this is Jersey, after all, but it was still more fun than the mosh for Tokyo Police Club there last year – QRO live review).  Gareth stepped up his self-admittedly poor on-stage banter when he told the crowd they only had two more songs, and someone replied, “But you know more than two more songs…” – Gareth rejoined, “Not really…”  Sticking Fingers’s “We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives” went off right, but just as the band started into finisher “Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks”, Neil’s pedal went into some serious feedback.

Los Campesinos! playing Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks live at Maxwell’s, NJ:

As Gareth apologized again, someone shouted, “You’re lucky you’re pretty!”, which the singer bowed to as the best piece of banter on the evening.  And it was certainly an engaged crowd: after “Sweet Dreams” ended, the crowd kept their sing-a-long of the title refrain going (with the girls in the very mixed-sex crowd even doing Aleks’ underlying harmony-humming) for many minutes afterwards.  Unfortunately, Neil’s pedal pretty much had given out, and the band couldn’t make it back on stage, despite one of the longest encore demand sing-a-longs since Metric at Webster Hall (QRO live review).  And that’s Los Campesinos! for you – they’ll give it their all every night, but you – and they – are only more energized at the end than at the start.

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Concert Reviews
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