Seen: 21 February 2006, Effenaar, Eindhoven.
Of all the fashionable retro guitar wave acts, Editors is one of the most attractive to me. The band also convinced me on stage this week.
Of course they have similarities in sound to Interpol and subsequently to groups from British industrial areas known to be active around 1980. But the Editors understand the art to create catchy, dynamic songs. And they certainly have a good singer in the person of Tom Smith, who sounds very alike Ian Curtis in songs like Someone says.
Last year Editors was still playing in smaller Dutch venues. Their current tour quickly sold out Amsterdam’s Paradiso and Tivoli in Utrecht. That left only the more remote Effenaar in Eindhoven as an opportunity to see them live. Support act were The Brakes. They were not bad, and their singer sounded a bit like Black Francis, but their guitar songs did not really get me hooked.
This was different with Editors. They did not build things up slowly. The band started directly with the powerful singles Lights and Bullets. A convincing new song called Bones followed. Then the pace was slowed down a little, but the songs followed one after another quickly. No breaks between the songs, no tuning of instruments, no chatting with the fans. This kept the energy in the performance, but also made things seem a little professional and not so spontaneous.
But the band certainly knows how to play, with a solid bass, a furious drummer, a cool guitarist and the energetic Smith, who also steals the show in the slower songs like Camera. In just over an hour Editors finished their set, which of course mainly consisted of songs of their debut album Back Room. They left some of the energetic songs for the end, like Munich and Fingers in the Factories. A very good concert of a tight band with fine songs, which proved to be more than a fashion craze.
I didn’t make any pictures, but you can see some great photos by the band’s ‘in-house photographer’ James Goulden.
Or listen to some recent live recordings in Boston.
