Poorly served by a dodgy soundsystem and impatient crowd, Black Country, New Road never quite found their stride on a drab night in Newcastle. Lethargic and lackadaisical, the vibrance of their first three albums seemed a world away.
They say that sometimes history repeats itself. Last May I found myself picking through crowds of jubilant Leeds United fans to the back of a winding queue outside a sunny Brudenell Social Club, bursting with anticipation of a performance from Black Country, New Road, a prospect made all the more intriguing by the fact that the band’s frontman Isaac Wood had abruptly left just three months prior. Almost exactly a year later it’s the black and white striped shirts of Newcastle United that are flowing past me towards their stadium. This time just as before, I had more important matters to attend to than football; BC,NR were back in the north. The now six-piece band continue to be the talk of the British indie rock scene, largely off the back of their massively successful 2022 masterpiece Ants From Up There, which contains some of my most treasured pieces of music. Last time I attended the Newcastle University’s unappealing gigging venue for Cassia last October I arrived at peak times but nonetheless had to resort to the help of the Co-op security guard to locate the entrance. There were no such issues this time: the long line of young, mostly male students snaking around campus was testament to BC,NR’s ever-growing cult following. Me and friends Ewan and Ben weren’t particularly late, but the crowd inside NUSU was already dense as we queued up for Coke. We considered ourselves lucky with a spot to the extreme front left of the audience, even if it meant half of the band would be entirely hidden from view by a set of speakers.
To some extent, I knew exactly what I was in for as the concert started up. The band’s promising set of completely unreleased material last year in Leeds has since been tweaked and released as an enjoyable live album, and this performance promised repeat renditions of those nine songs. However, releasing an album changes it. This was immediately obvious in raucous, feel-good opening number Up Song. Where in Leeds the joy had been in the element of surprise and the spontaneous audience reactions (indeed, the screams of elation audible when the wall of sound first hit at the start of the song remains one of my most memorably exhilarating gigging experiences), in Newcastle we had an opportunity to sing along to the now familiar lyrics. In particular, the earnest, adorable line “Look at what we did together / BC,NR friends forever!” was aptly belted out by everyone in the room in a wonderful moment of togetherness. The sense of collective support for the band continued through cheers over Lewis Evans’ squeaky sax part, but I’ll admit I found myself missing Leeds’ element of surprise. The listening experience certainly wasn’t helped by worryingly lacklustre execution. Singing bassist Tyler Hyde looked particularly weary and unenthused, which was perhaps understandable after, crushingly, her microphone failed to work during the crucial first few lines of the song. Even as the song hit its heaviest patches of danceable rock, most band members kept their eyes steadily locked to the floor in front of them, seemingly wishing this whole affair to be over already. The ongoing tour to promote their live album does indeed seem rigorous (the drive to Newcastle from Leeds came via Dublin, and this week they head to Manchester via Glasgow), and in NUSU there was plenty of evidence that all the hard work is getting to them. Releasing an album changes the band, too.
Most band members kept their eyes steadily locked to the floor in front of them, seemingly wishing this whole affair to be over already.
A limp Up Song set the tone for a distinctly disappointing evening, albeit largely for reasons out of BC,NR’s control. The greatest flaw was the sound design. I already knew NUSU was a poxy venue, but it was shocking just how completely an off night from the sound guy eliminated any hopes of getting lost in the music. The band must have experienced this before – the complex mix of violin, saxophone, flute and multiple lead vocal mics must be a headache for even the most capable audio engineer, and indeed their set in Leeds last year was not without its niggles – but this performance seemed exceptional. Some supporting instruments were rendered inaudible at some point in almost every song and crucial moments were blotted by ear-bleeding microphone feedback.
I Won’t Always Love You was one of the songs that suffered most. It had a promising start, with Hyde wisely swapping out a slightly tedious stop-start rubato intro for a searching tapestry of guitar plucking, but one expansive crescendo later and the mix had become muddier than a soggy afternoon at Glastonbury. Evans’ screaming sax lines, searing on the official live album, were amongst the several components lost to the din. It was a similar story for 10-minute epic and prior fan favourite Turbines/Pigs. May Kershaw’s graceful piano melodies remained spellbinding, but as the ambitious climax arrived, the NUSU speakers proved utterly incapable of handling Hyde’s sinister bowed bass guitar. For a song all about the patient build towards a gut-wrenching finale, this failing was one of the night’s most tragic.
Perhaps the poor sound quality was also to blame for a notably rowdy and disinterested crowd, even if the venue was undoubtedly sold out. Invariably, BC,NR’s quiet instrumental moments were rudely talked over. Evans was measured in his response, repeatedly offering gentle requests of “hush now, people of Newcastle,” before, a few songs later, giving a more exasperated “you’re too loud, Newcastle.” Tellingly, some of the more witless audience members only whooped back at him, assuming it was a compliment. Evans and his bandmates looked more defeated than vexed, and the passages of music not lost to soundsystem screeches were lost to a hubbub of chatter instead. Feeling ignored, it’s no wonder their performance sagged as a result.
Was that a dissonant note choice or simply a mistake? As a tepid applause rolled in, I decided it was probably the latter.
A few new songs thrown into the set list were essential to beef out the live album’s fleeting 47 minute runtime, but the fresh material turned out to be far more inconsistent than what BC,NR fans have become accustomed to. Early on, Evans led an unreleased song that felt clumpy and unsettled, and both the iffy tuning of Hyde’s guitar and questionable note choices from violinist Georgia Ellery warranted brows furrowed in suspicion. Was that a consciously dissonant note choice or simply a mistake borne out of mid-tour fatigue and unease? As the song reached a wimpering fade out and a tepid applause rolled in, I decided it was probably the latter. By far the best of the new songs came towards the end of the set and saw drummer Charlie Wayne thrillingly take hold of a banjo (and, even better, play it quite competently). The intricate, light-footed experimental folk tune that followed sounded uniquely vibrant, and gave a hint of the group’s outstanding musicianship that had been so apparent on the turbulent jazz cuts of their debut album. Ellery – the transfixing voice behind radical electronic duo Jockstrap – also provided strong lead vocals at one point, in a well-overdue first for BC,NR.
It was an indication of the band’s general tiredness that it was only as the gig’s finish line came into view that they finally found their stride. Up Song‘s new reprise was the biggest innovation on the band’s live material since their trip to the Brudenell, and attempted to wrap the neat bow of a cyclical narrative on the show’s disparate collection of jaded performances. Somehow, it worked. Hyde’s vocals sounded even more piercing and achingly vulnerable than usual, and Kershaw’s twinkling, pensive piano playing felt strangely moving after witnessing six people drag themselves through what must have been an unpleasant 80 minutes on stage. For a tantalising, undulating few minutes, we were gifted a glimpse of just how beautiful BC,NR’s music can be, given the right circumstances. The speaker feedback had stopped and the impolite crowd had been silenced, apparently in repect of this breathtaking flash of artistry. Minutes before they were to disappear unceremoniously backstage (an encore was out of the question), Black Country, New Road had rediscovered what makes them such special, singular talents. On a better night, this would be the time to let the tears roll and succumb to the urge to giddily bash out a five-star review the next morning. Tonight, it was a case of too little too late.