It’s a sign of age to complain about the music of the youth if today. And yes, I do it: I find pretty much all mainstream pop and chart music to be utter crap, but I'm also more than accepting of the fact that it's a generational thing, and I'm not the target demographic. Every generation has its own music, and rightly so.
And so I feel I can be excused for having not heard of, let alone heard of Alex G until my daughter asked if I would take her to see him by way of a birthday present. I couldn't really say no: whether or not it's to my taste, I'm unashamedly delighted that at 14 she's wanting to go and see live music. I will also add that I'm particularly pleased that she's finding her own stuff that's not the same slop her mates listen to.
Some cursory research indicated that as a contemporary exponent of lo-fi indie, worthy of some Pavement comparisons, his a career thus far has spanned around fifteen years. During this time, he’s amassed a fair body of work, much of which has been released by independent label Domino, home to many greats acts. He clearly has some credibility, and it’s taken him a while to be able to sell out 3,000 capacity shows like this here in the UK. His tenth album and major-label debut, ‘Headlights’ (released on RCA) has garnered acclaim (and clearly some new fans) for retaining the soul but with a bit more polish on the production.
Before Alex and his band take to the stage just after nine, we’re treated to a set by Sour Widows. It started with promise, like a dream pop Fleetwood Mac, but swiftly slipped into insipidness. There are some nice shoegaze vibes and nice harmonies – and it could be the slick mix – but when you get the impression things should kick in a bit harder, it seems a bit flat, a bit too smooth and lacking some much-needed bite.
It’s soon clear that part of Alex G’s appeal is his stylistic eclecticism, which grabs bits and pieces of country and alt-rock and laid-back almost loungey stuff, all pulled together with a rare balance of panache and lackadaisy. And some of the fans are rabid for it.
But this is where I struggle with the generational differences of gig-going. I know phones are a thing, but even from the second row, it’s hard to see the stage past the phones filming. A teenage girl doggedly works her way to the front past my daughter and I and proceeds to film the entire set in 30-40 second clips while dancing. The footage is guaranteed unwatchable. She’s later joined by an equally pushy friend, who watches the stage through her mate’s phone as she films. A guy to my left spends half the night filming the back of the head of the person in front of him, with occasional glimpses of the guitarist. Another girl, clearly into the song and into the moment, also filming, suddenly turns her phone round to film herself singing along. And then there’s the screaming. Literal screaming. Like in footage of The Beatles. They scream and whoop at the start of each song. They scream and whoop at the start of guitar solos. They scream and whoop when a riff kicks in. They scream and whoop when it drops to a quiet bit. Alex downs his guitar and picks up an accordion, and they scream and whoop so loudly the accordion is drowned out completely. He says thank you, and they scream and whoop so hard you’d think he’d just announced world peace. It’s perhaps not surprising there’s not much chat from the stage: it would be inaudible. I don’t really get why people would drown out something they love so much with their own voice, and while I get wanting to capture some document of the event, to watch the entire thing in miniature through a screen… Sure, tell me I’m old. I’ll live with it.
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None of this is the fault of Alex or his band – second guitar / keyboard, drums, and bass – and they’re tight while retaining an appealing sense of looseness and spontaneity. Since he’s got a new album to promote, it’s not entirely surprising that all twelve songs from ‘Headlights’ feature in a set that lasts for almost an hour and three quarters, and contains twenty-five songs including some improv in the middle. Although – disappointingly for some – he bypasses early fan-favourite ‘Race’ (that’s as in fans who prefer the early work), the set does broadly represent the span of his career, and while the body of the set is more or less fixed each night, culminating in a blistering extended version of ‘Headlights’ the (not insubstantial) encore is a pot-luck box of crackers.
My daughter opined that the songs from ‘Headlights’ sounded far better live than their studio versions, possessing an energy and immediacy lost in the production. This isn’t uncommon, and despite being unfamiliar with the material, the range – often a bit quirky, and with unpredictable chord changes and song endings – and the energy made for a show that, despite its duration, was never dull.
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