Teenage Illogic And Stadium Tedium

I went to a fantastic concert at Wembley Arena last night that I just have to tell you about. It was this great contradiction of a band – a vocalist with a perfect voice but instead of playing with the type of band that would perhaps complement his vocal style, he was singing his intelligent, passionate songs over a bed of pure, strangled noise. Imagine Antony Heggarty singing his tortured blues over the soundtrack to David Lynch’s Eraserhead, Rufus Wainwright singing with Neubauten or Jeff Buckley duelling with Throbbing Gristle and you’d be close to the mark.

Except that this wasn’t at all how it should have sounded. The singer is one Johnny Borrell and the band are Razorlight, who have recently jumped a few gears in the indie crossover stakes and celebrated their first number one single – ‘America’ – this past fortnight. As even the most cursory listen to the pastoral ‘America’ would inform you, Razorlight’s sound is hardly one of feedback, pounded leaden rhythms or pure unadulterated noise; but that is how it sounded at Wembley last night. You could hear every cadence in Borrell’s voice – a bonus compared to some concerts I’ve been to there – but the music was just a muddy, distorted, sludgy mess. Noise like the imaginary collaborations described above can be a thrilling, if punishing, event, but when it’s not intentional it’s just unacceptable. Take drummer Andy Burrows for example – his drumming style is both impressive to watch and intricate in its approach, but he may as well have been pounding dustbin lids for all you could make out.

In part I was expecting to be quite negative about this concert. Razorlight have joined the big league with a carefully-crafted form and profile that belies their release of just two albums and a loyal following that two years would have trekked to any manner of dingy North London pubs to catch a concert by them. It’s not their success that bothers me, because I think the band represent a shot in the arm for the British music scene, and I truly believe that Borrell will go on to become either a cult or legendary figure in British music, if only because his focus, drive and ambition will ensure that he doesn’t sit anywhere less than the very top within rock’s hierarchy. I don’t have a problem with the band’s fame, in fact I think it well-deserved.

I remember seeing Razorlight on the now-defunct Top Of The Pops just prior to the release of their breakthrough single ‘Golden Touch’. I recall remarking to my wife, who was by now already smitten by both the music and Borrell’s image, that these guys were a proper rock ‘n roll band. They just had that attitude and arrogance, I suppose, that has served them so well.

Neither do I have a problem with their second, eponymously-titled album, which seems to lack the consistent energy of their debut; it’s just a less direct, upbeat album, a bit more subdued and thoughtful, the sound of a band keen not to restrict themselves to a certain milieu and plough rock’s furrows in pursuit of no particular rock style. That’s actually quite brave for what would be regarded as that ‘difficult’ second album that music rags like to blow on about. It also shows how confident this band are that they could move so quickly from the near-punk nihilism of ‘Rock ‘n Roll Lies’ to the ethereal ‘America’ or the skiffle of next single ‘Before I Fall To Pieces’, or the country hybrid evident in ‘Kirby’s House’. Impressively, last night they played every single song from their second album – this was a far cry from the last concert we went to, Red Hot Chili Peppers at Earl’s Court, where the band, just fresh from releasing a 28-track double album, played about five songs from that new album in their entire set. That says a lot to me about how much Razorlight believe in their new material.

I don’t have a problem with the political sloganeering which has seen Razorlight aligning themselves fully with the Live 8 / Make Poverty History / Curtis / Geldof / Bono thing. Passionate about certain subjects Mr Borrell may well be, but not in the irritating way that Bono likes to drone on about all these disparate causes trying to alleviate misery and suffering. He could probably achieve this far better if he shelled out a bit more money on these charities and stopped singing; that would certainly put an end to my suffering. Last night the screens prior to Razorlight taking to the stage were not filled with the usual commercial advertising that you normally see at stadium concerts, but instead long clips advertising The Big Ask which seeks to address and halt climate change, and a film detailing the collapse of our environment with harrowing imagery of Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans disaster. Admittedly this was then replaced by an opportunity for audience members to pay £1.50 by SMS for a video download of one of the songs performed on stage live that very evening; whether you like it or not, despite bands’ frequent protestations to the contrary, making music professionally is all about making money.

The main thing I have a problem with is a jarring disappointment at having to watch this incredible band in a venue like Wembley. Fair enough it may well be expected by a band that have now become a much more successful act, but the last time we saw them was in the intimate North London venue The Garage in Islington, where we were among around 500 committed fans. Standing there last night avoiding aggressively-slung half-empty plastic beer glasses, watching the clowning casual fans stadium-chanting their way through the choruses of only the most obvious tracks, I realised just how disappointing it was seeing this band in such a large, cold venue compared to the warmth and intimacy of The Garage where the audience consisted only of the most die-hard fans. We were spoilt with getting to see them at The Garage, much as we were spoilt last year by being in the audience at a 1000 ticket concert at Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel by the Chili Peppers – one of the biggest bands in the world in intimate surroundings where you could almost touch them.

And then of course there’s the sound at Wembley. I’ve been to concerts at this flagship London venue several times before and every time have come away saying I’d never go back again. Now that the venue has been refurbished inside and out, my hopes that the sound would have similarly improved were proved to be mere pipe dreams, as the sound, as described above was just as abysmal as ever. We had a similar thing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers after hearing a superior mix at The Borgata only to get horrendous stadium sound at both Coventry’s Ricoh Stadium and Earl’s Court. But whilst Wembley might now look much more modern, the sound still sounds appalling. I cannot vituperate enough about the short-changing you get from shelling out not insignificant sums on concert tickets only to be greeted by a sound that disappoints.

I found myself observing the audience more than the band itself, wondering how it was that such casual non-fans even bothered to buy tickets if all they were going to do was shout at one another and decide who was going to head to the bar for the next round. Judging by their dancing, I can only assume that most of these individuals were big club-goers in the late 1990s and early 2000s who suddenly realised that music tastes had changed away from dance music in favour of live rock music, and that all the sexy girls were heading out to gigs rather than nightclubs. This would explain their housey ‘hands in the air’ attempts at dancing to rock music. It would be quite amusing were it not so bloody irritating.

I know music is supposed to be a populist affair accessible by everyone, but when concerts start attracting the type of individuals who go along to festivals to get wasted while listening to music rather than listening to the music in the first instance, there is a bit of a problem. Not just for committed fans such as my wife and I, but also for the band whom I can’t imagine find it particularly gratifying to play to an admittedly packed venue but one where less than half are really there for your band.
There is, however, the possibility that the concert sound was actually fantastic, that the band thought the audience were really behind them and that casual and die-hard fans locked arms in an ell-embracing solidarity, and that I’ve just become too old for concerts like this one.