Liars
Live @ Luminaire, London

Tuesday evening in London, I found myself faced with an unexpected choice, very New York-esque if I'm honest. On one side, the secret and very fashionable Strokes concert at ULU, on the other side, Liars playing just 300 meters from my house at the Luminaire. Partly because I didn't feel like queuing for the Strokes, partly out of laziness, I opted for Liars. Never before had my indolence guided me so well. Firstly, I was able to stop by home to be free of bags, cell phones, MP3 players, and various wallets for the concert. The Luminaire is a tiny little club where interesting music is often played, it's the typical place where you notice that the singer of the opening band has a forest of hair on her arms, and if she seemed cute, you shudder in disgust. It's a place where there are more photographers for the various fanzines, web-reviews, etc., than actual fans, let's say I felt right at home. Damn, there aren't even many indie kids (they're all at the Strokes concert, I know!), what more could I ask for.

In short, I make it through the Semifinalist and Celebration unscathed and wait a bit bored under the stage for the Liars. Premise: I only knew them through a CD I recently bought and didn't have great expectations. As soon as they finished setting up the stage, the drummer and the versatile percussionist came on and started pounding out a mind-blowingly deafening rhythm. A minute later, the singer arrived—a towering two and a half meters, very skinny, with wildly disheveled hair in his face and a long beard. He came in and began screaming and writhing like a madman possessed by some strange drug. The first part of the concert was truly distressing, but at the same time, the rhythm they managed to maintain felt like it invaded you, shaking your entire body and preventing you from standing still, and the louder it was blasted, the less control you had. The more it went on, the more you got accustomed to the rhythm and started to understand why the singer behaved that way. He is the damn terminal of the sensations we, the audience, experience. That annoyingly cacophonous noise, this repetition of the same phrases we listen to and dance to as if hypnotized, explodes like a geyser in his madness. Of course, the show doesn't last more than an hour and a half, because no one could keep up these rhythms for longer, but I'm sure everyone went home happy with a big smile on their faces and a strange buzzing in their ears.