bReview: IDLES
Auckland Town Hall, Thursday 16 January 2025
Words by Lucia Taylor
When interviewing Mark Bowen from IDLES, he described their live shows as “All about becoming uninhibited, we lose ourselves in the show immediately, and we try to kind of engender that in our audience; it’s this raucous, big bubble of energy that is cathartic, hugely cathartic,” and as a chaser of catharsis, I set my sights on finding my way to the sold-out show. Two months later, I stood in the Auckland Town Hall as a sea of people clad in various IDLES tee shirts filled the room. Unable to see anything beyond the backs of hundreds of heads, I cheered when the rest of the crowd did, but it was a false alarm. Very shortly after, though, Jon Beavis took his position behind the drum kit, playing the ominous intro to IDEA 01, the opening track of their 2024 album TANGK. As it does in the album, suspense grew stronger and stronger as the isolated kick drum echoed until the rest of the band joined on stage, led by Joe Talbot doing a staunch walk familiar to hardcore but juxtaposed by his bright pink hair. At the end of the song, all of the lights dramatically blacked out to cheers from the audience before flashes of red welcomed Colossus. The whole room chanted, “Forgive me, Father, I have sinned,” a moment that could only be described as incredibly powerful. Standing on the tips of my toes, I could make out Talbot’s signature move of lassoing his microphone above his head before catching it and welcoming the crowd, instructing us to split down the middle; I knew at this point the stage would soon become visible as the audience and band became the “raucous bubble of energy” Bowen spoke of. I said goodbye to my friend and prepared for when the crowd collided.
From this point onward, beautiful chaos ensued in the mosh pit. It was not long before a circle opened up, the first of many throughout the night, enthusiastically closing in at the crescendo of each song - most of these moments were to songs from 2018’s aptly titled Joy as an Act of Resistance. Between songs, Talbot advised the crowd to “Smile in the face of pricks and dance with the people you love, and accept that we’re all a bit fucking different,” a great ethos well-known to IDLES fans, further setting the tone for a night of unity. Throughout their nonstop two-hour set, they thankfully played songs from all of their albums - the pure punk of Brutalism and Joy as an Act of Resistance was met with moments of calm and much-needed opportunities for the crowd to catch our breath provided by the experimental synth-laden tracks from TANGK and CRAWLER.
The highlight of the mosh pit (excluding my first crowd surf) was when Lee Kiernan and Mark Bowen made their way from the stage to the middle of the room. The pit opened up around them as they played their guitars while spinning around and we whirlpooled around them, another instance of the night so densely packed that I was inhibited from even moving my arms, simply going where the wave of people would take me.
IDLES have always been great at striking a balance between sincerity, vulnerability and love with their often aggressive-seeming music. This was at its peak as Joe Talbot spoke of his fifteen-year relationship with the band - Adam Devonshire (bass), Mark Bowen (guitar), Lee Kiernan (guitar), and Jon Beavis (drums). He confided that “They accepted my faults, they gave me patience and love, and it saved my life,” this is the understanding and unconditional love that we all wish for (and deserve), and in the Town Hall on that night, no matter what each person was going through, whether they had that support in their lives or not, they got to feel it for a night. The power of that must not be undermined. Talbot concluded with a hope that we all “find good scumbags to dance with,” this was clearly a metaphor for life but was quickly joined by one of my favourite IDLES tracks, I’m Scum, and the mosh pit went wild, letting ourselves lose our inhibitions and embrace our scumminess for a night. We all got down lead in a chant of “Fuck the King,” while Talbot softly sang the bridge before we all jumped up at the drop, sing-yelling with joy despite the injuries surely sustained.
Another highlight of the set was Beachland Ballroom, in which the whole crowd sang the repetition of “I’m not praying.” Despite the lyrics, this unification of voices amid sways of bodies in the historically beautiful Auckland Town Hall was one of the closest moments I have had to a religious experience. However, the ruckus energy was shortly returned through their hit Never Fight a Man with a Perm, which the mosh - of course - went crazy to, followed by 2024’s leading single Dancer, solidifying the fun as we all jumped up and down with big smiles on our faces dancing hip to hip and cheek to cheek.
As Bowen said in our interview, “[the show] is a real ‘journey’ and bullshit, but it’s just cool. It’s fun. Primarily, that’s what it is.” I couldn’t agree more with this sentiment. Over the course of the night, the crowd was taken through an odyssey of intensities and respites, but, above all, we had fun losing our inhibitions and finding catharsis through music.
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A very special thanks to IDLES for having us along!
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