I am well aware that my entire remit as a writer for Is This Music? is to go and watch bands and then summarise the performance in a couple of hundred words, but I must confess I’m at a loss when it comes to conveying just how incredible this performance was. The best I can do is quote my companion on the evening, who turned to me around half an hour into the show and uttered a single word which seemed to perfectly encapsulate everything: “Jeezo.”
For the sake of fleshing out this little review, I suppose I could say that the spine-tingling performance of ‘The Wolves (Acts I and II)’, was the single most stunningly beautiful and emotional five or six minutes I’ve ever experienced in all my years of going to gigs (and it was). I could also comment on how wonderfully receptive the crowd was, as it alternatively sang along wildly and stayed completely silent, almost holding its collective breath, at all the right moments, suggesting that everyone in the hall was completely transfixed by what was unfolding onstage (and we were). And I could also point out that, despite the furious protests from my bladder, I remained rooted to my seat until the very last note from the very last song had drifted into the rafters of the Queen’s Hall, putting myself in very real danger of having a nasty accident (I didn’t).
I’m not going to bother with any of that though, because that one word sums it all up far better than I can.
Jeezo.