From the second the opener is finished tonight Ian Williams is stalking his side of the stage fixing cables and stretching guitar strings, a long haired drum tech tests the highly set cymbal and Dave Konopka sets his pedal board.
Battles are a band about gear; to ensuring that set up is clinical only makes sense.
A brief conversation at the side of the stage with Synergy (promotions) chief and then Konopka walks to his station and begins looping.
Seemingly so well timed he stops and poses for a fan to take a picture then Williams walks on.
The samples continue to fly about as Williams begins hitting mute strings and stabs setting up what sets Battles apart from the tag math, a strong sense of groove carries the flow of loops and melodies that fill Battles’ songs.
This is completed with John Stanier who appears like a monster emerging from a pair of Ampeg 8x10s.
A few seconds of head bobbing to get into the feel and Stanier sets the band off proper.
Leading off this year’s La Di Da Di is a totally vocal free album; and is applied to back catalogue.
‘Ice Cream’ from 2011s Gloss Drop is stripped of the Animal Collective like vocals that made it quite annoying.
After three numbers Konopka provides a spoken introduction to the band, thanks Glasgow for previous shows – the first being at the old Stereo in 2005, thanks Synergy and Mogwai.
Noticing that they might be suffering from a hungover Sunday audience they start back with ‘Dot Com’.
Bizarrely ending with what vaguely seems like Williams’ Guitar saying “here we, here we” you know the rest…
The sounds are near perfect hi-fi, theatre stabs and steel drum samples; at times it does feel like the audience is stuck inside a Boss DD-6.
The only track from Mirrored, ‘Atlas’, gets the biggest pop of the night, a shame really.
They leave the stage briefly and come back; Williams interacts with the crowd and it is followed by the best heckle I’ve heard this year, “I love you Stewart Lee”, a big “ohhhhhhhhh” burn from the audience seems to jinx the keyboard as the samples crash and have to be reset before lead single ‘The Yabba’ can be executed.
Well worth leaving the house on a Sunday to see, it leaves the listener wondering however will the group ever reach the perfect levels of Mirrored again as clearly it is what this crowd have been waiting for since 2007.
Words: Paul Choi
Photos: Stewart Fullerton
