Photo: Press
Before his sold out show last night at Village Underground, William Doyle (aka East India Youth) gave some very precise stage times via a tweet: ‘2145 EIY (68 minutes) / We will be on schedule’. He did appear on stage at exactly 21:45 and went off again just two minutes later than promised, after 70 minutes. There was no encore, and it was a short and very tightly planned and executed set – but despite this precision, the stage was filled with a kind of chaos.
Doyle played a combination of tracks from 2013’s Total Strife Forever and from his sophomore album, Culture of Volume (released in April this year), beginning with instrumental album opener ‘The Juddering’.
Gradually layering up bass and huge waves of pure volume, he grew more and more frenzied throughout the set, furiously mashing keys and swirling around the stage with his guitar. By the time he reached fifth track, ‘Dripping Down’ he was fittingly dripping with sweat and had to signal for a towel to be tossed to him onstage. The screen behind him was filled with visuals that would otherwise have been entrancing, but Doyle performed so charismatically in his trademark black suit that he detracted all attention away from them.
‘Heaven, How Long’ saw the crowd singing along with all their hearts, whilst ‘Hearts That Never’ got everyone dancing and blended into a penultimate instrumental track which was almost rave-y. The final song of the night (commencing at about 22:43) was recent single ‘Carousel’; a fitting last tune to calm everyone down before sending them off home.It stripped back the sweat and the beats of the previous few tracks and saw Doyle move away from his keys and laptop to a separate mic, from which he filled the room with his gloriously haunting vocals.
East India Youth played:
The Juddering
Turn Away
Looking For Someone
Beaming White
Dripping Down
Don’t Look Backwards
Heaven, How Long
Hearts That Never
Hinterland
Carousel
