Pitchfork

Photos by Sanchez and Kitahara

Watching the members of Glaswegian noise-pop group the Twilight Sad warm up for their live KEXP broadcast yesterday afternoon at Chicago's Engine Studios, one might have thought the band had come from their hometown's school of sensitive, navel-gazing popsters like Belle & Sebastian. Singer James Graham timidly slouched in front of the microphone, drummer Mark Devine crouched unassumingly behind his drum kit-- until they cranked into song number one, they seemed like the shyest guys in the world.



That perception, of course, was shattered about a minute into "Cold Days From the Birdhouse" (the lead-off track from the band's fantastic debut Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters), when Graham unleashed his Scottish brogue on the line "but this is where your arm can't go," as if to prove that this is where they can go. And once they'd gotten there, they really didn't stop over the course of four songs.



Devine had to keep a concrete block in front of his kick drum to keep him from pounding the whole kit into the sound booth (where the songs sound properly mixed; inside the studio, his endless pounding is the only thing anyone can hear). Host John Richards exclaimed, after their second song, that it was the most noise they'd heard all week.



But after a half-hour offering of such Fourteen Autumns tracks as "And She Would Darken the Memory of Youth" and "I'm Taking the Train Home", the fellows' meek demeanors returned. They gave a quiet, polite "thank you" to their host, and began packing up for two more U.S. gigs before heading back across the pond.


(The Twilight Sad with KEXP's John Richards)

Setlist:

Cold Days from the Birdhouse
Watching That Chair
And She Would Darken the Memory of Youth
I'm Taking the Train Home

Hear the full performance HERE.















Twilight Sad:

10-05 St. Louis, MO - The Billiken Club &
10-09 Liverpool, England - Carling Academy $
10-10 Preston, England - 53 Degrees $
10-11 Leicester, England - The Venue $
10-13 Sheffield, England - The Leadmill $
10-23 Portsmouth, England - Pyramid $
10-24 Falmouth, England - Princess Pavilion $
10-25 Exeter, England - Phoenix $
10-27 Nottingham, England - Rescue Rooms $
10-28 Warwick, England - Warwick University $
10-29 Cambridge, England - The Junction $
10-30 London, England - Koko $
11-02 Belfast, Northern Ireland - Mandela Hall $
11-21 Reading, England - South Street Arts Centre
11-22 London, England - Club AC30 at Hoxton Bar and Grill
11-23 Tunbridge Wells, England - Tunbridge Wells Forum
12-04 Bergen, Norway - Hulen
12-06 Oslo, Norway - John Dee
12-12 Utrecht, Netherlands - Ekko
12-13 Goningen, Netherlands - Vera
12-14 Hague, Netherlands - State X Festival
12-15 Venlo, Netherlands - Perron55
12-16 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso

& with Film School
$ with Idlewild