More about: Idles

IDLES. Joe, Bowen, Dev, Lee and Jon. They're one of my favourite ever bands. If you're reading this, it's not unlikely they're one of yours too. And how wonderful that these men have risen from pubs to palace within two short years. Tonight is a celebration of an incredible success story from a band with sound politics and values staunchly at their centre. What a shame that tonight, the crowd has started to resemble the careless, masculine roughness present at any other rock gig.

The band themselves are on top form. For their step up to a 10,000+ capacity, the show is powerfully delivered and lovingly updated. Bowen keeps his clothes on. ‘Queens’ and ‘Slow Savage’ reenter the fray. A saxophonist called Colin joins them. The setlist is completely new, scrambled and split into two with traditional set-closer ‘Rottweiler’ sandwiched in the centre of an enormous two-hour set of their best. Even 'Well Done' is removed - "you're four years too late."

And there are new songs! ‘War’, ‘Grounds’ and ‘Danke’ all get airtime, as well as a tune about selfies whose name escapes me. Tasters of the next album combine the grit of Brutalism with the positive rallying cry of Joy As An Act Of Resistance. They’re brilliant and the crowd love them.

Sadly, what is usually a safe, warm environment has turned nastier. It was inevitable that such an enormous show would have drawn people in for the aggression of the instruments rather than the nuance of the delivery but it's still depressing to experience. IDLES deserve to play ever-bigger venues to ever-larger crowds of people, but it doesn’t seem likely that the politics at the centre of their music will stay fundamentally intact as they grow.

Feedback on the IDLES community group AF Gang is overwhelmingly positive, and I can’t help but wonder if they watched the show from different vantage points. From mine, at the stage-front mosh pit, the mood is tinged feral. The pit is a phallus; there are women and non-binary people here, but only a negligible amount. An IDLES mosh pit is ordinarily mad but caring. Tonight I can hardly breathe. Some men remove their shirts to complaints from others - it’s gross, and as a person with breasts, I couldn’t remove my shirt (I’m wearing no bra) even if I wanted to. One topless man is wearing a balaclava.

My friend is groped in a secondary mosh pit further from the stage. Two men grumble when Joe pleads for the crowd to Vote Labour, asking why the band must bring politics into it (have they ever heard an IDLES song?) Perhaps it's the usual problems with Ally Pally's acoustics, but there's a definite sense that Joe's messages of feminism, unity and open-mindedness are landing on deaf ears.

I’m disheartened by my experience tonight. IDLES shows have always been deeply heartening experiences grounded in love and safety. But tonight feels like a definite shift away from that. From the stage, messages of allyship and acceptance from a band buoyed on their own brilliance and success. From the pit, a sense that too few have received and understood. 

IDLES played:

War
Never Fight A Man With A Perm
I'm Scum
Mother
Faith In The City
Divide & Conquer
Heel/Heal
Gram Rock
Queens
Slow Savage
Danny Nedelko
Rottweiler
*Drone Intro*
Colossus
Grounds
Love Song
1049 Gotho
Benzocaine
Samaritans
Television
Danke

More about: Idles