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“This isn’t the same as the Cockpit.” With Oliver Sim’s mid-set declaration eliciting laughter from the crowd, it would have been easy to ignore its pertinence; just last April, The (unknown) xx supported The (overblown) Big Pink at Leeds’ favourite sub-railway-bridge club.
In the intervening year, the loss of one member (keyboardist Baria Qureshi) to exhaustion has been counterbalanced by the development of a cult following sizable enough to sell out Leeds University’s three-tiered, 1000-capacity club venue months before the gig. The blossoming support can mostly be attributed to their stunning debut album, xx, which found its way up last year’s end-of-year lists of the Guardian, Uncut, NME and Pitchfork, among others.
Taking to the stage after animated sets by the rhythmic, menacing These New Puritans and the oft-yelping, peculiarly attired Glasser, their performance was all the more arresting for their comparative stillness on stage. Their debut might seem to have been written for the darkness of night, but rather than producing a soporific spectacle in the live arena, the elevated significance of every microcosmic motion on stage made for a striking set.
Impressively for a performance in a bass-heavy club venue, The xx’s music is sparely enough arranged that each of its parts comes across with great clarity. Whilst Sim and co-lead singer Romy Madley Croft’s half-whispered vocals remain soulful throughout, the subtle guitar effects which accompany them coexist with a delicacy rarely found in the live arena (or, indeed, on many bands’ studio recordings).
Running through every track from xx, roughly in the original order, two factors come across as different and worthy supplements to the recorded experience of their album. Whereas the trio’s technical performances are faultless, the visual show matches and acts as a perfect foil for their aural aesthetic, being perfectly balanced and made of subtle parts. Drummer Jamie Smith’s place at the back-centre of the stage behind two illuminated white Xs completes the trio’s symmetrical triangular formation on stage, whilst a large dark X, backlit with red light and angular, symmetrical white beams, towers behind him.
On top of that, the precise result of their live sound engineering is perfect for the occasion; the system’s emphasis of the bass element of their sound brings out the relative excitement provided by Smith’s synthetic drums, giving the set momentum when they come to the fore on the likes of ‘Crystalised’ and ‘Islands’; equally, the ambient guitar of ‘Fantasy’ is well attended to.
The xx might seem to be the sort of band to be overwhelmed by a live setting, but in the event, the meticulousness found in every aspect of their show makes them an unlikely but undoubted must-see on the live circuit.
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