I previously caught Liars at the Warsaw during the Drums Not Dead tour about two years ago. That album was my favorite record of 2006, and that concert was my favorite show of 2006 as well, the best of the many excellent shows I caught that year. It was dark, rhythmic, and impossibly intense, placing in my top ten favorite concerts ever. This was consequently a night I’d been looking forward to for quite some time.

The Warsaw was again packed, and Los Angeles’ No Age got the night off to a good start. They played energetic, loud, simple-punk inspired rock songs. When you’re a duo, it’s important that the limited instruments you play sound great, and No Age excelled here, blaring an excellent warm, fuzzy guitar tone with just enough crunch to it. It made them sound thick, and provided a good base for their melodic, sing-shout vocals. I hope to catch a headlining set from these folks in the future, and have recently been enjoying their latest, Weirdo Rippers.

I didn’t know what to expect from Liars on this tour, but I was certainly surprised when they came out as a quartet instead of their normal trio. The mystery fourth performer took over all Angus Andrew’s normal guitar duties, and didn’t have any problems recreating his unique stylings. Angus came out looking very dapper in a suit, and performed a good chunk of the show sitting from a chair front and center in the stage. Tonight, he took on the persona of sixties variety-show television host, talking frequently to the audience between songs, dedicating songs to friends and generally trying to be charming. He played it completely straight, without any irony that I could notice; rather, I think he was serious, which in itself was quite a surprise; he wanted to be an emcee, not a rockstar. I half expected to see the band go into some cheesy ballad or pop standard, but was always quite pleased when they instead went into their inimitable brand of post-modern mind fuck. I much prefer Angus’ previous persona, the charismatic, intense-evil-sexual-genius who looms and stalks around the stage to such great effect. He was still very much the center of attention visually, but Aaron Hemphill and Julian Gross stole the show musically with their intense rhythmic collaborations and general sonic chemistry. Speaking of which, the songs from Liars’ latest, self titled record sounded great, good enough in fact to make me re-evaluate the record much more positively. Not that I didn’t like it to begin with, but I found it to be inconsistent and less focused than Drum’s Not Dead. What I was missing is the explosiveness of much of the new record. The catalogue material still sounded great, though the band wasn’t quite as tight with it as they were the previous time I saw them perform. All in all, I was very satisfied, and Liars’ reputation as a can’t miss live act stands strong.

Labels: Concert Reviews, Liars, No Age