Photos by James Nagel // Written by Andrew Pohl //
Interpol with Rey Pila //
Fox Theater Oakland – Oakland
September 20th, 2014 //
The best part of seeing bands that you’ve never seen before is that you can take what they are offering and not have to compare it against anything else. Having never seen Interpol before and being an appreciator of their music, I was excited to see how the show would go. The Fox Theater in Oakland was an ideal setting for this new experience, with easy views of the stage and top-notch sound.
Rey Pila was the night’s opening act. The five-piece group, which hails from Mexico City (now residing in New York), were a complete mystery to me prior to catching their show. It was immediately clear why there were tapped to support this tour as their sound was complimentary to that of Interpol’s but different enough to add some variety to the night.
The majority of their set was full of post-punk/early alternative style cuts à la Echo & the Bunnymen or The Church, with less emphasis on synths. Energetic frontman Diego Solórzano did his best to engage the crowd, at several points jumping off stage to meet the fans at their level. The performance was solid and the songs were enjoyable, though it felt like they weren’t connecting with the audience as well as they may have hoped.
After a brief intermission, Interpol took the stage, dressed to the nines. A large video screen displayed the cover art from their new album El Pintor for the first three songs, and there were a few rotating strobes filling the otherwise black stage with red, blue and purple throughout their set. The set itself was a solid mix of tracks from the new album, along with material from all of their prior releases, mostly from Antics. Throughout the set, the visual element on the video screen offered minimalist/modern psychedelia and geographic landscapes that paired well with the mood of the music.
Lead singer Paul Banks’ vocals were a bit “pitchier” than I expected, but that didn’t affect the music in much of a negative way as the band, on the whole, performed splendidly. The set was shorter than I anticipated, but in many ways, that was a good thing. Interpol’s songs are not drawn-out epics — they are nice and tight. I think they are wise to offer up a concise, well-packaged set instead of doing a marathon worth of material. Though they’re not the most energetic band on the planet, what Interpol lacks in conventional stage presence they made up for by setting a consistent mood and feeling of “cool.”
Setlist:
1. My Blue Supreme
2. Say Hello to the Angels
3. Evil
4. My Desire
5. Length of Love
6. Breaker 1
7. The Lighthouse
8. Anywhere
9. Everything Is Wrong
10. Lights
11. Narc
12. Not Even Jail
13. Slow Hands
Encore:
14. All the Rage Back Home
15. NYC
16. Obstacle 1
Congratulations to Rey Pila!!!!