Before Field Music take to the stage, almost the whole of a Talking Heads Best of plays over the speakers.
Where the album stops, at Speaking in Tongues’ ‘Slippery People’ – and around 1984 – is perhaps a good starting point for where Field Music begin.
Set opener ‘The Noisy Days are Over’ is precise, rhythmic, funky, complete with chaotic and robotic guitar solos, while at the same time, is palatable, and pop.
It’s reminiscent of David Byrne’s collaborator St Vincent too, if you close your eyes and imagine it as a similarly single-minded (it helps that the Brewis brothers, who take turns on lead vocals, sound so similar), virtuosic, methodical, academic project.
But Field Music’s virtuosity is more democratic than that, Peter and David Brewis swapping lead guitar, lead vocal/ drummer, backing vocal positions through the set.
And against the cold, disconnected, misanthropic character St Vincent’s Annie Clarke plays at her shows, the Brewis brothers are affable and joke with the audience all through the show, allowing the show to pause at one point for a chant for a sound guy called Archie.
“That’s it! Right, now! Zip it!”, David Brewis has to say part way through, after reflecting that their questions-as-song-titles approach invites a little too much audience interaction.
That the venue’s packed out tonight showing the results of a band who have quietly and consistently released strong albums since the mid-2000s, while North Eastern peers Maximo Park and The Futureheads went about finding commercial success.
But while these bands have suffered in a sort of collective dismissal of NME-backed, mid-noughties British post-punk, Field Music have weathered this storm and been able to find their best chart success with the poppiest album of their career, their ‘white soul’ album Commontime.
It’s an earned high point for Field Music, and tonight they get to revel in it.
Words: Tony Boardman
Photos: Paul Storr
