When you end up face to face with Matt Berninger, singing the chorus of ‘She Drives Me Crazy’ by the Fine Young Cannibals with enough irrepressible fervour to make you think he’d been waiting to belt out its lyrics since its release in 1989, it’s difficult to deny that your night out has been a successful one. Those thoughts, or some thoughts very similar, were undoubtedly rolling around one man’s head last night as he made his way home from the Electric Ballroom in Camden, having had that very encounter after Berninger decided to take a step off the stage and mix it up with the crowd during a melting-pot of a set that provided all of the sexy, raucous, and cuttingly cool moments EL VY’s North London faithful have by now come to expect.
Some occasional whoops of anticipation are, completely understandably, escaping from the crowd after sets from Small Feet and The Pennysurfs, and a wait for the main act during which the excitement is palpable, but these expressions of pent-up excitement are dwarfed in comparison to the noise emitted from the North London venue when Matt Berninger and Brent Knopf take to the stage with their band in tow.
And at once, Matt is grateful for the reception; his half-joke-half-admission that he had been licking all the Smiths posters during the build up to the show draws the appropriate laugh from an audience that is immediately on tenterhooks, and his gratitude at being able to start bringing the tour to a close in London, followed by a humble ‘here we go’ before the first tune makes kicking off the show with ‘Careless’ seem befitting of his calm demeanor.
It doesn’t stay calm for the entire night. As the night goes on the crowd gets more and more warmed up, and more and more bodies start to bob and sway. Matt and Brent take us through the album with aplomb with each track’s reception as zealous as the last. Particular highlights have to be mentioned in the form of ‘Happiness Missouri’, ‘I’m the Man to Be’, for whose inspiration Matt wryly thanks Jesus, and ‘Return to the Moon’, during which the audience’s bellowing of the lyrics is almost as loud as Matt’s mic or the plucking of Brent’s guitar, which is effortless, as well as seemingly effortlessly interchanged with tinkling on a keyboard, and even the bass, for the duration of the evening.
As the night draws to a close, Matt takes up his position on stage again for the final two songs after the brief foray into the crowd, which is all too happy to envelop him for the duration of Fine Young Cannibals’ ’80s hit. As the final notes of ‘Need a Friend’ compete with the noise of the audience, the smile on Matt’s face makes it obvious that, much like the members of the crowd he’d mingled with moments ago, it’s going to be difficult to deny that his night out was any less successful than ours. Possibly even more so.
See our pictures by Patrick Gunning here.
Words by Ben Kitto