Photo: WENN
As The Neighbourhood emerge to the electric grind of ‘Ferrari’, frontman Jesse Rutherford is sporting a persil-fresh white suit, complete with flared trousers that would make Travolta blush.
Despite the yellow Ferrari to which the song refers, the stage was absent of colour. In a tiring trend, Rutherford and Co’s insistent on a monotone existence extends past TV crews and photographers onto their live shows.
Minimal lighting effects are limited to varying white lights and strobe effects. The desire to blot out the Cali-sunshine rich dazzle association of TV shows like The OC and music videos from Lana Del Rey is overpowering to the point of distraction.
Playing a venue such as the Roundhouse, you have to go small and draw people into a hushed awe, as Matt Corby seemed to achieve with panache a few nights ago, or you go big. NBHD, as they are oft-branded, went for the later. It was like stadium rock. During ‘Wiped Out!’ there was an extended drum solo from Brandon Alexander Fried, with an eye-watering array of pulsing spotlights on his kit like we were witnessing an alien abduction. It was a genuine, if overlong, exhibition of their rock credentials. Frequent electric guitar-sliding from both sides of the stage contrasted the live sound with their popularist hip-hop, quasi-90s boyband-predominant studio output.
Rutherford however, doesn’t excel in this area. His vocal didn’t appear to carry to the admittedly distant Level 2 of the Chalk Farm venue. The lyrics were hard to make out, with nearby audience members often trying to work out which song was which amongst the less well-known tracks.
The biggest reception of the night was for ‘Daddy Issues’ (complete with sinister kidnapperesque voice-distortion for the chorus) from October’s Wiped Out! album. It surpassed break-out hit ‘Sweater Weather’ which won the award for most sustained sing-along from the North London crowd.
It was a big show. The lighting was constant and exiting, even if it was the only window-dressing to an otherwise blackened, dark aesthetic, but Rutherford bounced and moved like a rockstar in his impressive get-up.
The whole show just lacked the more subtle dark atmospherics exhibited on their records. There was an air of crash-crash-bang, lowest-common-denominator to it all. I really was ready to love it, but it was underwhelming.
