"I Need Something New": On Seeing Savages Before 9 AM

Photos by Nathan Lucking

It’s a little before 8:45 on a Tuesday morning in January when Savages vocalist Jehnny Beth approaches the lip of the stage. Before her is a sold out 100 Club. “Good morning,” she says, a smile spreading across her face. “Let’s do this.”

Wind the clock back an hour and the mass of bodies spread out in front of the famous venue’s wide, but shallow stage is snaking along Oxford Street and around the corner onto Berners Street. There are a lot of takeaway coffee cups clasped in hands and a few muted laughs about excuses fed to bosses and supervisors.

A cameraman, in search of B-roll, noses past someone cleaning the windows of a small supermarket while another dude puts some comfortable-looking shoes to good use flyering Savages’ upcoming Roundhouse show. A cyclist in full facemask, meanwhile, weaves across a bus lane as he cranes his neck to see what’s going on. “I’m not even going to be late,” one man in the line says. “That’s the nonsense of it.”

Savages aren't ones for empty gestures. The idea that the timing of this show, the first they have played since the release of an incendiary second album, Adore Life, means something is implicit. At 6:45 AM, collar turned up against the bite of a cold morning and the street lights still comfortably keeping dawn at bay, the hope that it means something, at least, is very close to the surface. When they announced the new record back in fall, this early morning set was included almost as small print; a pre-order tie-in that screamed: “Why?” “Experience,” Beth briefly explained during a BBC radio interview later in the day. “Trying something new.”

Use your fingers to count the communal experiences you've had this week. Two, three, four, maybe five. Your commute, definitely, maybe a show. In London, the tube is defined by an uneasy balance of shared purpose and hard-headed individualism. Rush hour occurs at breakneck pace and largely with scant regard for your fellow rats. This morning is a picture book example. Eyes are glued to free papers or phones, while the odd book fights the good fight. Everyone already looks tired and harassed. They have at least eight hours ahead of them during which to become more tired and harassed.

This is where Savages' 8 AM roll call finds its purpose. From the moment “Shut Up” grinds to life on the back of Ayşe Hassan's rumbling low end, we have something else to do. Beth's performance is founded on eye contact and hand signals. It's about communication. In that sense, it's the polar opposite to what went on in the hours prior to it starting.

At one point, though, she observes that the show is in fact exactly the same as any other. She's right. The bar’s open, even if it’s littered with Red Bull cans rather than pint glasses, and there’s a merch table. It's fucking loud, the stage lights are on, and, once the obligatory layer of London frost has been blown clear, there are feet moving.

But there is one glaring difference. Positioned here, at the start of the day, it's a 30-minute exercise in pressing reset and looking at your surroundings clearly. That's something that drives Adore Life. Where Silence Yourself posed pointed questions about internal and external pressure, sexuality, and the nature of freedom, this record is about trying to reconcile some of the loose ends. It's about love in all its forms: brutal, broken, invigorating, sweet, powerful, universal. Live, the new songs are every bit as sharp as their predecessors, but there's also real warmth to them. They are a counterpoint, not a revision.

“I need something new in my ears, something you could say, perhaps,” Beth sings on “I Need Something New.” The song doesn’t make the setlist, but it speaks of the show’s ace: the idea that we, as a group of people, could inspire one another, or at least shift some perspectives. When Beth focuses on individual people in the crowd, there’s a transfer of emotional capital, her wide eyes demanding something, anything in return.

Hassan and drummer Fay Milton lock in early and don’t let up. As a rhythm section, they are cast iron, allowing Beth and Gemma Thompson to add their flourishes. Standing stage right, Thompson characterizes the subtle shift in the band’s approach. The sort of guitarist who can cleave your head clean open with a lead, this morning she alternates between rushes of feedback and textured fuzz. As “The Answer” and “Sad Person” roll from squalls of noise to deceptive melodies, she adds fresh depth and nuance.

Adore Life is a record that thrives on a sense of catch and release. It's comfortable when ringed off, however momentarily, by Hassan's tightly coiled basslines but also a space in which a song can plummet into a seemingly endless, primal howl as “Slowing Down The World” does. That descent is mirrored at the 100 Club. “I think we can all agree that this is the coolest reason to be late to work,” Beth smirks at one stage, sipping from time to time from a mug that suggests the time of day more than anything else in the windowless room.

By 9:15, things have become enjoyably frayed at the edges. During the penultimate song, a typically visceral “Husbands,” Beth charges past Thompson to the side of the stage and plays to the small throng gathered there. Moments later a group of women is being exhorted to clamber across the stage and into the front row in time for the final flourish: “Adore.” Cynicism is good for you, but it is to be left aside for now. “Maybe I’ll die, maybe tomorrow,” Beth sings. “So I need to say: I adore life.”

There’s no rush of feet once the final note sounds. Beth turns to leave and signs off with a wry “have a good day.” If anything, most of the crowd seems to have forgotten about work altogether. A good number file across the road and into Soho, making a beeline for the just-opened record store Sister Ray. There’s another queue there, with LPs crossing the counter as talk turns to breakfast. The excuses, it seems, will hold for a while longer. As Savages said themselves back in autumn: It’s about now, not tomorrow.

Huw Baines is still groggy. Follow him on Twitter - @Huw_Baines