Editors frontman Tom Smith doesn't sound like Ian Curtis, although there are hints of a lifetime of Joy Division listening session on "Lights," the opening track for The Back Room (out now on import through Kitchenware Records). However, he does look an awful lot like the late, beloved Curtis, especially when he pulls the microphone towards his sweat-drenched polo shirt, goes stiff and starts belting out lyrics. His mouth moves into odd, wide shapes, somewhere between awkwardness and anguish and the voice relinquished is so full and pure that it seems more fit for a stadium than the back room of a Hollywood and Ivar club with a rundown, indistinguishable facade. Is there such a thing as a band being too good for its surroundings?
I purchased The Back Room at Tower last week, the last copy in the store and, so far, the only copy I have seen in stock at any record shop I have visited lately. While I fell for "Munich" a while back when I heard it on Lamacq Live, it was not until I heard the cd as a whole in my car that I realized that I just might be listening to my new favorite band. Trust me, I don't use that title very often, but Editors deserve it. If I were still a teenager, I would be listening to this in my room as I sobbed English rain tears because my parents drive me nuts, my friends are backstabbing assholes, all the cute boys are gay, I have cramps and college is still two years away. Then I would start cutting out pictures of the band from Q to hang in the most honored spot next to Moz, Robert, Ian, the Depeche Mode boys and Siouxsie.
Needless to say, it's an intense cd, but in a live setting, the band is all the more striking. It's a beauty debilitating for the beholder, like love at first sight. I couldn't dance to the set. All I could is stand still, three or four feet away from the stage and stare like some frozen music geek who gets way too involved in the sounds filling the room.
Afterwards, Ivan (who I thank a million times over for getting me into the show), Norma, Jenny and I ended up in the sort-of-backstage party room chatting with members of the band. I think they hit up all of the members, I only spoke with Ed (Drums) for a split-second and Chris (bassist) for slightly longer. They were extremely cordial, especially considering that it looked as though they had been swamped by people in the hour that passed between the end of the show and our meeting. Chris told us that they are coming back to the States for South by Southwest and then sticking around to play for a while, so we are hoping that we can see them again very soon, before they become so huge that we will have to pay scalpers to get tickets for Staples shows.