“This is for all of the scumbags here … for all of you, and me”, Joe Talbot screams at his raucous audience, except Joe Talbot really doesn’t seem like a scumbag at all. I’ve never met him, but his lyrics span everything from fighting racial intolerance in Brexit-era Britain to addressing the dangers of hypermasculinity.
His band, Idles, have been touring with Safe Gigs For Women, a group that promotes events that actively fight against sexual harassment at gigs and provide workshops in the cities they travel to, spreading awareness. The man could have committed countless atrocities in his past life, just as every stranger could have, but by no means does Joe Talbot seem like a scumbag. The punk aesthetic he presents would, however, be typically be considered one of a ruffian, tattooed and leathered and loud. It’s the contradictions of Idles that make them so powerful, and it shows on their faces as they gut the Button Factory.
Colossus, the gig’s opener, acts as the revving of an engine, with metronomic bass intensifying and building while Talbot’s voice booms just above it as if riding a wave, growing louder and louder in accordance with the waterline. Nobody has ever sounded as much like Nick Cave than Talbot on the latter half of the track, his growling bass reminiscent of Cave’s performances on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! but with a distinct English snarl. For a moment Talbot’s band become The Bad Seeds, wailing and hollering demonically. Colossus is followed by Never Fight A Man With A Perm, as it is on their latest album Joy as an Act of Resistance, and it cuts through the crowd like a sharpened knife, sleek but devastating. The audience screams along with it angrily: “A heathen/ From Eton/ On a bag of Michael Keaton!” and: “You are a Topshop tyrant/ Even your haircut’s violent/ You look like you’re from Love Island.”
Every minute that passes a new stage invader claws their way over heads and hands towards the band’s tireless stage manager, who pulls them up before pointing to the rapturous crowd and encouraging each invader to dive – eventually half of the audience’s members end up dancing beside Idles, throwing themselves one by one off of the monitors and back into the moshing sea. Our photographer’s lens has to be brought to the smoking area every few songs to clean the moisture from its lens, the night unmistakably sweatier than any techno event in Dublin. At one stage the bouncer at the barrier is leading the manic spasms, all restraint gone out the window.
Subsequent songs from Joy include the tongue-in-cheek Love Song (“I fuckin’ love you/ I really love you/ Look at this card I bought/ It says I love you”) and the assault on textbook masculinity that is Samaritans, which has every sweaty punk in the crowd, man or woman, screaming in unison: “I kissed a boy and I liked it!” The Workman’s types bellow along with the high-rotation Danny Nedelko – these tracks from Joy build up the melodic backbone of the performance, anthemic in a manner reminiscent of The Clash. Songs from the band’s debut album Brutalism, on the other hand, focus on rhythm and sonic texture, seemingly trying to burst eardrums with decibels.
Guitarist Mark Bowen, once nicknamed the “Court Jester”, acts as the gig’s cheerleader, ensuring the crowd’s energy never falls as he sprints around the stage, looking every inch the late Stuart Adamson of Big Country or David Byrne of Talking Heads. In fact, none of the band’s members stop moving, whether kicking their legs like mods or surfing the crowd topless.
After a startlingly soulful rendition of Solomon Burke’s authentically angsty Cry To Me – of Dirty Dancing fame – the band holler Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You in comic falsetto, allowing some respite before finishing off the crowd with Rottweiler. Each member throws himself from the stage, possessed until the grimy end, and when the lights finally do turn on all that is left is a sweat-soaked floor and a crowd of unwaning, stupid smiles.
