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IDLES Bring Community, Insanity to Neumos with Fontaines D.C.

Posted by Eric Tra June 9th, 2019 1 Comment »

Idles @ Neumos w/Fontaines D.C.
May 28, 2019 in Seattle
Words and Photos Eric Tra

Bristol punk rockers, IDLES, polished off the end their U.S. tour with an epic performance filled with savage, raucous anthems and of course, crowd surfing galore.

Despite their somewhat recent emergence into the music scene, the five piece band, led by frontman Joe Talbot, have definitely made their mark. As a testament, Seattle’s show, like many others on their tour, sold out quickly. Bottom line, it’s good to see that IDLES is leading the charge and keeping punk music alive and well.

At Neumos, things kicked off with a Dublin band called Fontaines D.C., another up and coming band in the post-punk scene. The band played a collection of songs off of their latest 2019 album Drogel to get the crowd going.

Then, IDLES played a 16 song set that pulled a majority of songs from the band’s last two albums Joy as an Act of Resistance and Brutalism. The set opened up with the ominous, slow building song, “Colossus”—a song which later breaks out into vicious and chaotic whirlwind of echoing vocals and thrashing guitar, bass, and drums. The momentum of the rest of the set only increased in energy and ferocity with songs like “Benzocaine” and “Danny Nedelko.”

Later on in the set band members and fans alike were seen hurling themselves off the stage in an all out party. Even members from Fontaines D.C. got in on the action. Guitarist Carlos O’Connell attempted a second floor stage dive off the balcony but his immediately whisked away by security.

It’s clear the guys in IDLES don’t take themselves too seriously. But there were a few heart-to-heart moments between songs where the band leveled with the audience to let everyone know that despite all the craziness today’s political climate, we were in this together. This was clearly a band that values their community and this is the reason we love IDLES.

Setlist