The Editors at the 930 Club tonight – holy hell that was a damn fine show!
It was obvious right away in The Editors’ energy level that they wanted to make a good first impression on their first ever DC audience. And boy howdy did they! That was definitely a top 10 of the year worthy performance. The Editors totally commanded the 930 Club’s sound system and audience. By the end of their set the entire house was jumping, clapping, and dancing. It was incredible to watch this super tight band convert an audience that was mainly there for another band. The power and emotion of the band swept over the crowd through the first few numbers and then swallowed the audience whole when they played ‘Camera’ the emotional high point of the night. Once they had the crowd in their hands, the band then dove into some songs of true majesty and force.
Vocalist Tom Smith is an amazing young front man, besides his perfect voice he was all full of herky-jerky spastics and guitar poses. It was as if Smith’s wiry frame was struggling to contain the awesome soul of an ancient rock god. This is a man full of passion for his lyrics and the crowd responded to him in kind. Smith’s presence brought to mind Damon Albarn wooing a 25,000 strong, rain-soaked crowd at the Field Day Festival back in 2004. This kid is a natural.
And the band around him are brilliant. The bass and drum inter-play was incredible, being displayed several times during extended break-downs. In fact the Editor’s toyed with a lot of their catalog, making each song feel unique to this performance. Which to me is the very definition of a great performance. Added to which we got previews of two new Editor’s songs that “may or may not be on the next album”. The first was a slower number, much like ‘Camera’, full of atmosphere and emotion building to a crescendo. The second which I’m going to call ‘Retreat’ was an amazing energy number that sounded like early U2 gone shoegazer.
At the end of the perfect set vocalist Smith thanked the crowd for such a warm reception. He even expressed astonishment that there were some genuine fans in the crowd who had been yelling out b-side requests. Every one of the Editors seemed surprised to have fans “all the way over here in America.”
Needless to say, I am one of them. I really hope these guys come back through DC again so that I can force more of my friends to go see them. The Editor’s are awesome and they deserve every bit of success they get.
Originally published on March 30, 2006.
An amazing show!
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