With the sudden departure of founding guitarist Jim Ward, will tonight’s cult heroes live up to their legendary reputation? I desperately hope so.
Firstly a little background to how I got into At The Drive-In: having an older brother and music obsessive dad made for a great way of being fed good music from an early age. One day my brother shouts “come look at this”, as I wonder in a grainy video of ‘Pattern Against User’ is shoved in front of my face. I had no idea what on earth it is, but I was hooked from there onwards. Alas, I had come to terms with the fact that would probably never get to see ATDI do their thing on stage… but all that changed at the Camden Roundhouse.
Just by the soundcheck I knew that this gig is going to be an ear buster, the balcony shook as the drums were checked. At nine o’clock the lights went out as dramatic classical music was blasted over the speakers, and the band walked out to huge cheers as feedback flooded the stage. It was on. Out of the mush came the simple shake of maracas followed by the pounding of drums, every fan knew what was coming: the onslaught of ‘Arcarsenal’ erupted within the Roundhouse. The crowd shouted back every manically spouted lyric as ATDI dived full throttle into their show. Guitarist Omar Rodríguez was on fine form with his unique flailing leggings firing him across the stage like a man possessed. Frontman Cedric Bixler was standing proud, top of a bass stack before leaping higher to the stage floor and writhing around before making it to his feet.
“Cult heroes At The Drive-in are put to the test with their only UK show”
“You better help me sing this!” is commanded as the band rang head first into ‘Pattern Against User’, and the throng were only too happy to oblige. It was apparent that the stage tech were having a nightmare as Cedric continued to scale the stage’s set-up, climb on speakers and run amuck. But the crew’s annoyance was the crowd’s pleasure, as ATDI’s manic performance powered on with the non-stop ‘Sleepwalk Capsules’. The whole Roundhouse were eating out of the palm of the band’s hands, in what was a perfect exhibition of noise-rock madness.
The mayhem continued, as Credic announced: “According to my science, 300Mhz is the brown note, the precious frequency that will make you shit yourselves, and tonight you will take that shit and smother it in your neighbours face and say ‘ motherfucker I have arrived!’”. The band then frantically lead into ‘300Mhz’ from 1999’s Vaya, the band’s last EP. ‘Lopsided’ was dedicated to “who got them booty shorts on? I’m not talking to the girls, I’m talking to the guys, who’ve got those booty shorts on…”. It was clear to see the audience clearly didn’t know these tracks half as well as the Relationship Of Command material, but that didn’t limited their enjoyment of the music.
The chaos was resumed with ‘Enfilade’, which was met with a scream of “Freight-freight train coming!”. To put it lightly, Omar’s impromptu solo was nothing short of amazing, as Cedric busted out a key harmonica for the break down. The drop back into the final chorus saw the entire venue head bang in unison, and it was a joy to behold. With a leap of faith, Omar Jumped into the crowd and surfed around for a good few minutes whilst somehow hitting every vocal. Unsurprisingly, this got the biggest cheer of the night.
‘Quarantined’ showed that ATDI aren’t just pure noise and chaos: Omar’s slow jammed solo vs Cedric’s key harmonica was beautifully wound together and sounded truly epic, filling The Roundhouse from wall to wall. ‘Cosmonaut’, saw the band fully cut loose as Cedric and Omar collided mid stage, and sounded off the point where it really started kicking off: fans thrashed in their seats, people were slam dancing on the balconies, it was carnage. Young businessmen — normally professional to the core — were in baggy jeans and hoodies, fighting to be fifteen again as they lost their shit to ‘Relationship of Command’.
After a sentimental speech from frontman Omar thanking the fans for their support, the first chords of ‘One Armed Scissor’ rang out and triggered the entire contents of the Roundhouse to cheer wildly. Like a rush of blood, the opening sequences of arguably ATDI’s most noteworthy track gave the Roundhouse one last boost of energy, like a toddler washing down Haribo with a can of Redbull. The screams were defeating, and the performance was electrifying, as the crowd lost their shit for the final time. In his typical seedy but loveable attitude, Cedric grabbed the mic and declared his thanks to the Camden audience: “Thank you and good night, don’t forget to wash your ass!”
So did At The Drive-In live up to the hype? Are they worth their status as cult heroes? should we be excited for the new music? Yes, Yes, and hell yes to all three.