Live Review: Alt-J // Latitude Festival 17.07.15

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IMG_5188They’re the band that no truly indie lineup is complete without. Alt-J have made a name for themselves with their experimental sound, which to the first listener is usually impenetrable, but has become a staple of the bucket-hat-toting, vintage-sportsgear-wearing indie kid’s vinyl collection.

And yet, to look at the crowd at Alt-J’s headline set on Latitude Festival’s Friday night, you’d think we were waiting for Take That circa 1992 (just after ‘A Million Love Songs’). It was packed. In fact, the mosh pits – unusual, given the genre – had begun well before they took to the stage.

The band opened on ‘Hunger of the Pine’, a track from their new album This is All Yours. There’s a perceptible shift in sound between the band’s debut and second offerings, with a noticeable increase in bass and more distorted guitar work. The band’s first EP – forming the backbone of their first album An Awesome Wave – was written in halls of residence at Leeds University, where the use of bass guitar or drum was prohibited. It is tracks like ‘Hunger of the Pine’ that show their maturity into the more (dare I say it) mainstream wing of the genre, and the addition of some much-needed bass.

Nevertheless, the setlist was somewhat reliant on tracks from the original album, and featured all four of An Awesome Wave’s singles. It was pleasing to see that the scatterbrain sketchiness of the band’s original work has been well-received by the largely older, middle class demographic that Latitude attracts, rather than just the cerebral alt-poppers at which it was perhaps originally targeted.

Appropriately, Alt-J are famed for their eclectic influence – taking ideas from the indie-folk scene (Like Johnny Flynn said/the breath I’ve taken/and the one I must to go on) and electronica alike. Latitude’s extraordinary span of genres encompasses even the most cryptic of Alt-J’s tracks, precipitating the always-unnerving experience of a crowd singing melodic lines. And despite the band’s oft-mocked name and logo (Alt-J is the Mac keyboard shortcut for the triangular delta symbol ∆, meaning difference or change), their unique brand of divergence appears to be lastingly popular.

At first reception, many dismissed the band for the pretentiousness which so often accompanies experimentation outside the genre, but here their humility on stage was disarming. Joe Newman, sporting the perhaps-predictable hipster glasses, thanked the audience to the point of disbelief – as if we’d paid to see Alt-J alone. Then again, given the size of the crowds, we could well have done.

They’re the band that no truly indie lineup is complete without. Alt-J have made a name for themselves with their experimental sound, which to the first listener is usually impenetrable, but has become a staple of the bucket-hat-toting, vintage-sportsgear-wearing indie kid’s vinyl collection.

And yet, to look at the crowd at Alt-J’s headline set on Latitude Festival’s Friday night, you’d think we were waiting for Take That circa 1992 (just after ‘A Million Love Songs’). It was packed. In fact, the mosh pits – unusual, given the genre – had begun well before they took to the stage.

The band opened on ‘Hunger of the Pine’, a track from their new album This is All Yours. There’s a perceptible shift in sound between the band’s debut and second offerings, with a noticeable increase in bass and more distorted guitar work. The band’s first EP – forming the backbone of their first album An Awesome Wave – was written in halls of residence at Leeds University, where the use of bass guitar or drum was prohibited. It is tracks like ‘Hunger of the Pine’ that show their maturity into the more (dare I say it) mainstream wing of the genre, and the addition of some much-needed bass.

Nevertheless, the setlist was somewhat reliant on tracks from the original album, and featured all four of An Awesome Wave’s singles. It was pleasing to see that the scatterbrain sketchiness of the band’s original work has been well-received by the largely older, middle class demographic that Latitude attracts, rather than just the cerebral alt-poppers at which it was perhaps originally targeted.

Appropriately, Alt-J are famed for their eclectic influence – taking ideas from the indie-folk scene (Like Johnny Flynn said/the breath I’ve taken/and the one I must to go on) and electronica alike. Latitude’s extraordinary span of genres encompasses even the most cryptic of Alt-J’s tracks, precipitating the always-unnerving experience of a crowd singing melodic lines. And despite the band’s oft-mocked name and logo (Alt-J is the Mac keyboard shortcut for the triangular delta symbol ∆, meaning difference or change), their unique brand of divergence appears to be lastingly popular.

At first reception, many dismissed the band for the pretentiousness which so often accompanies experimentation outside the genre, but here their humility on stage was disarming. Joe Newman, sporting the perhaps-predictable hipster glasses, thanked the audience to the point of disbelief – as if we’d paid to see Alt-J alone. Then again, given the size of the crowds, we could well have done.


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