Last Night: Interpol at the BankUnited Center

Interpol singer Paul Banks

Interpol
September 19, 2007
BankUnited Center

Better Than: The big bright dark of a full-on eclipse.

The Review: Sure it’s nice to know people, but it’s really nice to know cool people, and at last night’s BankUnited Interpol show, cool converged in abundance. From the editor who gave me the assignment, the publicist who got me the tix, the dame who made sure my entrance was a vision, the cat who slipped me his camera, the facility chick who let me rumble among the photogs in the pit, to ye groovy Woody Graber, king of all live hype, who coordinated almost every step of all of the above – cool, cool and more cool.

But enough with the shout-outs; this report is supposed to be about a show, and, as you might suspect, those boys from the Big Bad Apple surely know how to put on some show.

Talk about lean. From the cut of the cloth that draped each immaculately swathed member of the band to the twelve-panel strip of the staging, there was no extraneous anything anywhere. Even in sound, lush as it is, Interpol seems honed to a sonic principality – no note unneeded, no swirl unnecessary, and nary a word outta place.

And unless you’ve been either caged or caved over the past few months, you’ve already heard the good word about Our Love to Admire, Interpol’s third long delve into the deep. As I said in New Times just last week, it’s a soaring, sweeping album of incredible scope and intrinsic heartening.

It’s also bleak, and bleakly uplifting, kinda just like the band, which began their BU barrage with “Pioneer to the Falls,” a sturm und drang so dour even I had to crack a smile.

Okay, so it was a smirk, but it was the smirk of someone who shares in the deep dark secret of their stir.

In quick and no-nonsense succession, Interpol went through what seemed to be the whole of Admire, and, whether you knew the tune or not, they insisted that you listen – closely. In fact, so serious were they about the hush, the crowd almost forgot to roar.

Until however the high sass of “The Heinrich Maneuver” kicked in and kicked everyone’s ass – into a frenzy. From there the hits just kept on coming: “C’Mere,” “Evil,” “NYC,” until finally Interpol encored on “Stella was a Diver and She was Always Down,” the most appropriately titled high note in the band’s low-slung arsenal. I tell you, never before has solemn been so much fun.

At Fox’s after the show, Lee, G and I were joined by Kayce, Christian and Mathies, and none of us could stop not talking about what we just saw. Oh we talked, mind you, on and on about this, that and the other, but we never once mentioned the concert. It was as if even though we’d assembled en masse, experiencing Interpol was something to be kept to ourselves. And to render our outspoken gaggle silent about anything is some singular sensation indeed. -- John Hood

Personal Bias: I dig the kinda do that requires no smile be left behind.

Random Detail: Carlos D’s long coat could’ve come off the back of a modern day Doc Holliday. Maybe it did. Or maybe he is.

By the Way: You can stream a whole lotta Our Love on their site.