PVT – Old Blue Last, London – 6/9/10
3/5
By: Tim Robins
Telling your friends that a gig is taking place at Shoreditch's The Old Blue Last is more often than not going to cause some kind of a stir. The comrades surrounding you in the local pub will usually either scoff at the hipster notoriety of the venue and make some snide dig about how the band playing will most likely just be some bowl haircut sporting synth troup, or they will jump for joy at the possibility of such impending good fortune. Surprisingly, the friends I recruited to accompany me to the launch night of PVT's second full length offering, Church With No Magic, did neither.
However, I couldn't help but feel throughout the night that the band were somewhat ill-suited to the uber-trendy venue in which we were all situated. This may have been because the gig was free and so the punters in attendance were not necessarily big fans of the band- or maybe didn't know them at all- but more often than not a compelling performance is enough to win over attendees exuding a lukewarm ambience. PVT's lesser known new album material was met with a reaction devoid of the collective gusto which greeted the Australians' first album “hits” such as 'In The Blood' and title track, 'O Soundtrack My Heart'. Though this is perhaps understandable at an album launch wherein most would not have had heard the entirety of Church With No Magic yet, there was barely one “thank you” or any between song “banter” to be heard from any of the trio's mouths. I always find this tendency somewhat sanctimonious from a band, and it did not seem to help the reception of their newer offerings.
The band's recent new age disco leanings with their quasi Battles slant- 'Light Up Bright Fires' and 'Church With No Magic' going down the best this evening- will inevitably not be to everyone's tastes, even those who were fans of their debut effort on Warp (que the incomprehensible yappering of a nostalgic old man: “back in my day, these guys used to be called Pivot” etc). Even though the band's second album is yet to completely win me over, as a piece of live performance I was thoroughly impressed with the evident musicianship that each member of PVT exhibited, which allowed the band to both produce an accurate reflection of their new album's material, as well as experiment with interesting arrangements for their older stuff to keep fans who may have seen the band once or twice before on their toes. The moment when the amazingly talented drummer Lawrence Pike took to the front of the stage to play keyboard for the outro of 'In The Blood' was one such surprising moment which injected a genuine sense of excitement into the otherwise languid crowd. On the whole, I felt that the ambience projected to the audience was that this album launch was in reality just a virtuosic chops fest, with the band as some kind of elevated spectacle in musicianship, rather than a trio putting on a show and wanting the crowd to really get involved and let loose. However, I do not think it would be out of line to say that this maybe comes with the territory of 'electronic post rock' or 'cinematic art-noise' or the genre of your choosing.
The scathing remarks that I had expected and prepared myself for concerning the night's venue were in fact ultimately directed at the band; one friend commented: 'I was a bit like, shut up, you aren't Animal Collective'. Much like Animal Collective, PVT certainly have the technical skills to wow crowds, but unlike them they lack (at present) the songwriting ability and hooks to win over those who are unacquainted with their material and are thus unable to appreciate the live nuances of the band's craft. The group also seem to lack a spark of enthusiasm which left their performance in the Old Blue seeming like the band themselves had all of their tools of worship- synths/guitars/effects pedals/drum kit- but were preaching to the wrong crowd, themselves existing in a particular church without the ability to conjure any magic.
Artists in this article: PVT
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