M83 @ St Giles-in-the-Fields, 12 December
It is dark inside St Giles, an eighteenth century church deep in the West End, and Anthony Gonzalez has just walked unannounced between the pews. He steps alongside his transparent box of tricks as analogue hiss seeps from the speakers. Slowly Gonzalez builds and tweaks the waves, heading towards a gentle pulsating crescendo. It’s an unassuming yet fixating live introduction, and begins a gig that I have awaited with absurd levels of excitement.
The night didn’t start that well – due to a late soundcheck the doors didn’t open for over an hour, leaving a cosmopolitan queue snaking it’s way along St Giles High Street on a cold December night. Once the doors opened, it was strange to head down the aisle of a church and file into the pews, facing an altar spread with all sorts of wired boxes and synths. To my great pleasure there’s a full drum kit alongside an electronic equivalent. The full band wouldn’t appear for three tracks or so, leaving Gonzalez to demonstrate his prowess with electronic manipulation and a guitar. And when he sings the clarity is amazing – I’d been told the acoustics in the venue were superb, and my source wasn’t wrong.
When the full band did join the noise levels went up a notch, but only from the low dais. Befitting the ecclesiastical surroundings, the crowd remained relatively silent. The first widespread nods of recognition occur when the spoken word introduction to Moonchild echoes around the high space. As with many of the tracks, it gets a live re-working with the crashing drum fill delayed until the midpoint of the song. It doesn’t quite sound as huge as I have imagined it would in concert, but it doesn’t prevent the angelic stabs sending pulses down every spine in attendance.
Unsurprisingly, the set is weighted towards this year’s supreme Saturdays=Youth LP. Even relative lowlights on the record such as We Own The Sky are reinterpreted as windswept epics, pounding beats from the excellent drummer pegging down cyclonic patterns from the two keyboards. Whilst the drummer is excellent, the second guitarist and the female vocalist are equal – supporting and enhancing Gonzalez’s singular vision. The band are tight, rhythmic and clearly enjoying themselves. Gonzalez and his opposite are frequently pumping at the keys, hips thrusting against equipment racks.
As the set builds towards climax, M83 have saved the best until last, launching into the keening strains of Saturdays=Youth’s highlight Skin Of The Night. Spun out and spiralling it is the peak of the set – the vocals striking incessantly and poignantly, as electronic beats shudder the wooden seats. The set is finished with the unfolding, complex and utterly breathtaking Couleurs, the instrumental pivot that the rest of the album rotates around.
And then it is done – Gonzalez heads back down the aisle to a standing ovation. Whereas coming into the evening M83 had been merely an artist I’ve enjoyed greatly; I leave with it concrete in my mind – 2008 belongs to them.
M83 – America
M83 – Skin Of The Night
Photos: Matt Biddulph
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