Interpol & Boom Bip

Based completely on Boom Bip’s stage setup, they seemed potentially interesting. Aside from the usual guitar, bass, amps and drums setup, one section of the stage was packed with keyboards, miscellaneous electronics, a laptop and one of those keyboard-guitar things like someone from Prince’s backup band would have been rocking in the ‘80s. They started with slow, relaxing, melodic, mostly instrumental music and eventually infused dance-y beats into the mix. I have a hard time getting into mostly instrumental music, especially when the songs start to drag on past the five-minute mark, and this was no different. They probably would make good background music for a party, but put face-to-face with the band, I found myself counting the seconds ‘til they would finish and Interpol would play.
When Interpol is good, they are really fucking amazing. They won me over with their live show opening up for The Cure on the Curiosa tour. There isn’t one specific thing about their shows that stands out. They play very well and have good stage presence, but it’s more that they create an intimate atmosphere that communicates the emotion in the music to the audience; something that is important for the personal, intimate nature of the lyrics. Unfortunately, that never really seemed to happen at this show. But even when they’re not all that good, they are still pretty damn good. Part of the problem was the sound at the venue, which was obviously off, and they seemed to have some kind of technical problem during one of the songs. It didn’t help that a large portion of the audience didn’t seem to know why they were there (maybe they just bought tickets because there wasn’t anything else going on at the university). They played a decent selection from Turn on the Bright Lights and Antics, but nothing new, and none of the songs varied much from the album versions.
Not to be overly critical, it really was a decent show, just not the best show I’ve seen them play. And to the band’s credit, they continued playing well even when they seemed obviously frustrated with the sound.
Words and Photos By Chris Schreiber

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