Photos by Philip Cosores
“It’s a Saturday night… date night, possibly. Are there any couples in the house? This is not place for a couple, this is a pit of despair,” so said Gareth Campesinos! to the audience early on in Los Campesinos!’s headlining set at the Echoplex. Lyrically, sure, there’s plenty of despair there and that’s a big part of what attracts people to a Los Campesinos! show. But, when Los Campesinos! fans get together, these feelings are completely inverted into pure unadulterated joy; where else are you going to find a crowd of people crammed together dancing along to songs about break up, or singing in unison about heartbreak, spite, rage and even death? I’m pretty sure nowhere else, so it’s unsurprising that Los Campesinos! can take their magical misery tour for an extended outing on another continent and sell out every single night – it’s the ultimate proof that, as they say, misery loves company.
Joining Los Campesinos! for this jaunt across the States is Parenthetical Girls, possibly one of the few bands whose singer, Zac Pennington, can outdo Gareth Campesinos! in terms of melodrama in a live performance. From the very beginning of their set, Parenthetical Girls seemed determined to add drama to their set in simple ways, be it entering one by one at the start or projecting vague and haunting images onto the rear of the stage. By the third song Pennington had already jumped into the crowd and wandered through it while maintaining his theatrical vocals – a trick that he repeated a few times, and which the crowd appreciated on each occasion. The best element of Pennington’s performance was his ability to let loose – despite looking all business in a suit. The most histrionic of moments came when Pennington started smashing a cymbal and dragging it wildly around the stage – all with the utmost grace mind you. The flamboyant singer seemed keen to keep the crowd involved throughout the set, talking casually between songs, and the band as a whole provided a cover of The Smiths’ “Handsome Devil,” which was appreciated by the crowd, the majority of whom were probably new to the band. At one point in the set, Pennington admitted that he was going to pander to the audience, trying to get the crowd to cheer by naming a bunch of LA bands they’d been listening to – but he needn’t have done so, their performance was more than enough to raise a good level of excitement in the crowd.
Los Campesinos! have released four albums since 2008 and have toured extensively behind every single one, essentially meaning that they have not had any real time off in years. This has not turned them into tired and bitter people, but rather a well-oiled, slick, and entirely professional touring machine. From the opening stomp of “By Your Hand” they had the whole audience bouncing in unison and Gareth immediately showed his qualities as a front man by belting out the song’s chorus. Gareth consistently showed his chops as world-class frontman throughout the night, starting off by slickly greeting the crowd over the fading of second song “Romance Is Boring” and winding it up just in time for the burst into “Death To Los Campesinos!” Throughout the night Gareth confidently produced jokes (“this is the Los Campesinos! Grammy party, the hottest ticket in town”) and sentimentalities (reproducing the unmistakeable lyrics to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” before launching into “You! Me! Dancing!”).
But, the main attraction was not of course Gareth’s stage banter, but the band’s performance as a whole. Drawing from all four of their albums, they reproduced a veritable “greatest hits” with songs from the new album like “Songs About Your Girlfriend” and “Hello Sadness” earning just as much love and crowd excitement as any of the older songs. Los Campesinos! kept it mostly upbeat, which the crowd greatly appreciated, dancing and moshing along unabashedly to songs like “There Are Listed Buildings” and “You! Me! Dancing!” Los Campesinos! showed just how enrapt they had the crowd by bringing the mood down to a slower, more depressing pace a couple of times without losing any voices singing along in the crowd; “The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future” was an obvious stunner, but the relatively new “To Tundra” provided the most show stopping moment of the night with its grand and histrionic crescendo, reproduced with even more blood, sweat, and tears than on the record.
Ever since the first time I saw Los Campesinos! perform, back at the start of 2008 just before debut album Hold On Now, Youngster was released, they have always finished their shows with “Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks.” The song still manages to provoke the most crowd movement, crowd surfing, and general chaos of the night. What about the fact that it’s about physically beating someone almost to death, yet it still leaves people exiting the show with the biggest grin on their faces? Well, that’s just the bloody icing on the heartbreak cake that is a Los Campesinos! show.
Los Campesinos! set list:
By Your Hand
Romance is Boring
Death to Los Campesinos!
Life is a Long Time
Letters From Me To Charlotte
Songs About Your Girlfriend
There Are Listen Buildings
We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
Straight in at 101
To Tundra
You! Me! Dancing!
The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future
Hello Sadness
Baby I Got The Death Rattle
Miserabilia
Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks
