Metro
The War on Drugs at Madison Square Garden: Concert Review
The continued COVID-19 pandemic and a blizzard that dropped practically a foot of snow on New York actually might have put a significant damper on the Battle on Medication’ biggest-ever live performance within the 5 boroughs — however regardless of these obstacles, a formidable crowd witnessed the group’s debut at Madison Sq. Backyard on Saturday evening.
Certainly, the Philadelphia band’s 18-song, 130-minute efficiency in some ways supplied a refreshing snapshot of the state of enviornment rock circa 2022. Except for drummer Charlie Corridor’s snazzy patterned shit and windblown hair and a tasteful gentle present, there was little, if any, flash. Slightly, the Battle on Medication supplied up tune after nice melodic tune, majestic sonics and durable musicianship clearly rooted within the teachings of Dylan, Springsteen, Petty and Knopfler. The group’s unabashed love of those forbearers is an enormous cause why its music connects, and why it’s nonetheless discovering new followers 15 years into its profession.
On an evening when it wouldn’t have been stunning to see a thinner crowd than common file into the world’s most well-known enviornment, greater than 10,000 individuals braved the weather to look at the Medication at work. The importance was not misplaced on frontman Adam Granduciel, who admitted onstage that he and his bandmates anticipated they’d be taking part in to 800 individuals. Later, he joked about crying within the Madison Sq. Backyard locker room in the course of the encore, like an athlete who wanted an ice tub and a stretch earlier than coming again out for extra time.
There might have been some early jitters afoot, because the group required a few songs to realize momentum, however they caught hearth on the roof-raising guitar solos on “An Ocean in Between the Waves,” from 2014’s breakthrough album “Misplaced within the Dream.” Of the seven tracks carried out from final yr’s “I Don’t Reside Right here Anymore,” probably the most attention-grabbing explored loops (“Sufferer,” with shades of the Smiths’ “How Quickly Is Now”) and drum-machine ambiance (“I Don’t Wanna Wait”), resisting the urge to succeed in too incessantly for the Medication’ dependable six-string heroics.
Flanked by Corridor, bassist Dave Hartley, keyboardist Robbie Bennett and multi-instrumentalists Anthony LaMarca, Jon Natchez and Eliza Hardy Jones, Granduciel gave a number of shout-outs to key members of the bigger Battle on Medication household, together with supervisor Ami Spishock (whose birthday was simply hours away), Secretly Group advertising director/new dad or mum Hannah Carlen and, on present nearer “Occasional Rain,” longtime good friend Mike Block, who shouldn’t be really within the band however performed lead guitar within the studio on a number of of the brand new album’s tracks.
That sense of inhabiting a bigger rock and roll lineage was felt all through the night, significantly on highlights similar to “Beneath the Strain” (Granduciel crouched to his knees because the waves of sound slowly decayed into the MSG rafters), “I Don’t Reside Right here Anymore” and “Burning,” a “Dancing within the Darkish” descendant devoted to Granduciel’s dad.
The ability of the band’s music eradicated the necessity for elaborate visuals. Skinny, vertical strains of LEDs shimmered and swayed behind the group, and banks of lights on the edges of the stage bathed the artists in purple and yellow at appropriate moments. The scheme switched to triangles of white on the primary track of the encore, “Pondering of a Place,” emphasizing the perpetually out-of-reach goals on the coronary heart of its narrative.
If the characters in Granduciel’s songs typically battle with the impermanence of life’s formative moments, the pursuit of them is persistently rewarding, particularly on such a grand stage as Madison Sq. Backyard. On songs similar to “Harmonia’s Dream” (”It’s so exhausting to discover a good friend as of late”) and “Residing Proof” (“I do know the ache you’ve been feeling / I’ve been to the place that you just’ve tried escaping”), the Battle On Medication’ music proved considerate in a method that eludes a lot of its contemporaries. Amid a world cluttered by extraneous noise, that’s a invaluable foreign money.
Right here is the Battle on Medication’ set record:
Outdated Pores and skin
Ache
An Ocean in Between the Waves
I Don’t Wanna Wait
Sufferer
Strangest Factor
Harmonia’s Dream
Purple Eyes
Your Love Is Calling My Title
The Animator
Come to the Metropolis
Residing Proof
I Don’t Reside Right here Anymore
Beneath the Strain
In Reverse
Encore:
Pondering of a Place
Burning
Occasional Rain
