Tim Harrington is, quite simply, a God amongst men. A huge bear of a man, bald of head but impressive of beard, a cross between an imperious Russian Tsar and a genial hobo, Les Savy Fav’s near-legendary frontman makes Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz look like Menzies Campbell. In a show chock-full of memorable moments, including dozens of jaunts into the audience, the dry-humping of a stage-diver, constant on-stage costume changes (culminating in a ladies’ nightie for the encore) and a sit-down in the middle of the Scala whilst the crowd moshed around him, it was Tim’s climb up the speaker-stack onto the balcony, and subsequent dangling backwards off said balcony that stands out as the single most stupid/brilliant thing I’ve ever seen anyone do during a gig. This reckless abandon contrasts beautifully with his band’s unflappable professionalism- the music, inevitably, is almost a secondary concern to Harrington’s crazed antics but LSF’s punk-flavoured, incongruously erudite indie-rock would be more than enough to carry the show on its own. The Pixies-ish chugging basslines and melodic, angular guitar survived the disappointingly muffled sound mix; the vocals, alas, were somewhat swamped by the sheer volume of the rhythm section.
But no matter- this did fuck-all to quench the enthusiasm of the audience, which almost matched Tim’s own. From start to finish the Scala was a mass of seething bodies; it’s certainly the sweatiest, most intense show I’ve been to in ages and rounding it off with a full-scale stage invasion seemed perfectly fitting. My lack of prior knowledge about the band perhaps prevented me from appreciating the songs as much as I might have done but even so, Les Savy Fav stand as a textbook example of how to put on one hell of a live show.
(Photos: Thefracturedframe (Flickr))
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