On my way to Edinburgh's Cabaret Voltaire, I wondered whether the night's gig was going to feel like a homecoming for The Twilight Sad, considering that it was their first headlining show in the UK since their successful sojourn abroad. They'd spent the last six months playing packed shows across North America and heaping in the praise, but strangely, that hadn't been the case in Scotland. Lead singer James Graham sings in a thick accent that couldn't be mistaken for anywhere but western Scotland, yet their UK shows have mostly been poorly attended. Kind of ironic that the only people in the world that could actually understand what the man was singing about ignored them -- until recently. Hype from across the pond helped to spread the word, and days before the show, the December issue of The Skinny, Scotland's monthly alternative magazine, came out with a year-end album list topped by The Twilight Sad.
The venue was already pretty full by the time Chutes came out. Their post-punk jams weren't exactly new and refreshing, though heads bobbed and I didn't see many people retreating to the quiet of the bar. They displayed some superb songwriting throughout the set and definitely made my list of bands to watch. Next, Broken Records crowded the small stage with their keyboardist, drummer, two guitarists, bassist/vocalist, violinist/accordionist, and cellist. They strained to sound like The Arcade Fire and Beirut and ended up sounding bland.
Soon after, The Twilight Sad walked shyly on stage, and the show began with the effortless dramatics that characterized the set. Starting “Cold Days From the Birdhouse” by himself, guitarist Andy MacFarlane wove an effects-heavy wall of ringing guitar chords while singer James Graham stood stage center, motionless and with his eyes closed. Eyes still shut, Graham began to sing in his thick Scottish accent. The vocals were rich, and the words rolled easily off his tongue. Halfway into the song, the drums and bass exploded into the mix, and in an instant, things got really fucking epic. Their sound was too huge for the cramped space of Cabaret Voltaire. They should have been playing in a large church, or maybe Red Rocks or the Gorge, somewhere with giant walls and infinite reverb.
The Twilight Sad proved to be highly adept at varying their level of energy and stringing the audience right along with them. MacFarlane's majestic guitar was allowed room to breathe on its own, the rhythm section went wild at the right times, and Graham varied his vocals from a resigned croon to agitated yelps in tandem with the rest of the band's energy level.
Despite the solid turnout, or possibly because of it, MacFarlane and bassist Craig Orzel were clearly nervous and didn't have much in the way of stage presence. However, Graham did his job as frontman and made up for his bandmates' deficiencies. Maybe it's just because I saw Control a couple weeks before seeing this show, but Graham reminded me an awful lot of Ian Curtis. He didn't do anything overtly Curtis such as the arm-pumping thing, but the physical resemblance between the two -- Graham's jerky movements, his tendency to let his eyes roll back into his head, and his pained expressions -- invited Curtis comparisons. He performed with an incredible intensity, as if he was reliving the stories behind his songs on stage. When Graham sang, “The kids are on fire/ In the bedroom” during “That Summer At Home I had Become the Invisible Boy,” it didn't sound the slightest bit overdramatic; I believed the man.
Halfway through the set, the band invited Rod Jones, Idlewild's guitarist, onto the stage to play guitar and electric organ. With the acquisition of this figure of the Scottish indie scene, I reflected on just how much better The Twilight Sad were than the two opening acts. The Twilight Sad employed many of the same conventions as Chutes and so many other bands, but their gloomy, shimmering guitar work and towering crescendos helped them tweak the sonic mold enough to sound fresh and engaging. The electric organ on songs such as “And She Would Darken the Memory of Youth” was spine- tingling like the organ found throughout Bows and Arrows or Neon Bible yet managed to dodge games of spot-the-influence.
I can't say whether or not the band felt like the show was a proper homecoming gig, though Graham did make the blasphemous comment that he now preferred playing Edinburgh to Glasgow. Regardless, the combination of The Twilight Sad's frontman's intensity and their music's magnitude in a live setting made sure my expectations were fully satisfied.
[Photo: Ralph Scott]
