Deerhunter & Lower Dens Shepherds Bush Empire, London 31/3/11
4/5
By: Jen Long
While time keeping may not be the coolest of traits to possess in the world of rock n roll, it’s one that earned all early birds an impressive experience when catching Deerhunter on their UK tour. These guys know how to pick a support act.
Opening proceedings at The Shepherd’s Bush Empire were Baltimore’s Lower Dens, fronted by a fairly buff Jana Hunter. The band took to stage like a whisper in front of an already packed crowd, a lick of anticipation in the shuffles of politely poised feet. Hunter and his co-guitarist flank left and right leaving their magnificently moustached bassist to mesmerise stage centre with his grooving nods and bobs.
Lower Dens music is easier described as feelings than sounds. The band managed to exude an overbearing calm across the tiered rows of faces with crushing warmth. Magnetically captivating and equally arresting, they kept their eyes on their craft and banter to a precise minimum. ‘Tea Lights’ fell into a lullaby of intertwined guitars while ‘I Get Nervous’ dragged its heels to heartbreak, each band member locked in their own dreamy stasis.
As the concert crowded to capacity, Deerhunter straggled on stage, Cox more enamoured by a discovery The Old Grey Whistle Test was filmed in his very surroundings than with the rapturous applause stowed upon them from a baited audience.
Opening with the haze of ‘60 Cycle Hum’, the Atlanta quartet took a similar standing to Lower Dens with bassist Josh Fauver holding centre stage and rocking his formidable swagger. But Deerhunter had an ace hidden up their plaid sleeves as the lighting set up blew minds, glossed and highlighting every smooth corner until it almost outshone the band. Beams of searing white searched from sky to stage in time to the near motorik beat of Moses Archuleta’s kick and snare.
Reserved but confident; they fitted and filled the boards with composure and a friendly knowing. Despite the amount of attention Cox seems to commandeer online and in press, live it often feels like he’s taken a step back, slinking into the shadows at the corner of the stage away from too much interaction with audience and band member alike. But the way they position themselves as a whole, and the style in which they share out movement and attention works to engage the whole audience with the performance as a single spectacle.
The lights, the force of one chord landing through a distorted and murky wall of noise, the imposing central figure, or the shying silhouette; Deerhunter take the breath of their audience and hold it in a near crippling paralysis. As the encore of ‘Octet’ crashed, cheers surrounded, jaws dropped, but feet stood firmly still and staring in deadpan wonder.
Artists in this article: Deerhunter, Lower Dens
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