late December,British post-punk quartet Savages said they would be playing nine shows in January, spread out across 19 days and three New York venues at Baby’s All Right, Mercury Lounge, and Saint Vitus with three shows at each. By now it is clear Savages are one of the great rock bands to emerge in this decade. Though I adored the group’s 2013 debut “Silence Yourself”, seeing the band live is a total experience. Savages has been out of the public eye for nearly a year. The band’s now back with new material, hence the New York residency.
As Savages vocalist Jehnny Beth once sang, “Let’s get it started (ha!) / Let’s get it started / In here.” Allons-y.
SHOW ONE: MONDAY, JANUARY 12 AT BABY’S ALL RIGHT,
On the 12th evening of the year, down Bedford Avenue, It’s rainy but not raining.
Norman Westberg, of Swans, is in the middle of an opening set, standing at attention over a guitar, goatee spiking downwards.
Baby’s All Right, is excruciatingly hot when it gets when packed. But it is conveniently located, intimate, and host to a pretty wide range of excellent acts. Dylan The Doorman says he’ll be seeing all three Savages sets at Baby’s, The Electro clash fades, a gurgling techno theme takes over, and Savages is onstage by 10:17.
“I need something new… in my eaaaars,” vocalist Jehnny Beth howls, which seems like a statement of purpose but turns out to be the opening line of a new song, “I Need Something New.” There’s a maelstrom of bass rumbles and tom-tom-heavy drum maneuvers from Fay Milton, a creeping build-up, then a quick pause and another new song: a droning blare of a punk track called “The Answer,” with machine-gun guitar blasts and a high, sing-songy vocal line. Within five minutes, any ambivalence fades. Savages is phenomenal. They’re not a “great new band,” or “great English band,” or “great all-female band,” an angle that’s commonly emphasized in press. They’re one of the best bands around, full stop. Abrasive, slicing, and climax-driven, Savages’ live chemistry is extraordinary, and while their appearance not infrequently draws them parallels to riot grrrl acts, the band’s best songs have a rhythmic, creeping dread that owes much more to early-’80s post-punk.
Each member is integral. Even when reading lyrics off a printed sheet, frontwoman Beth’s studied intensity runs in her facial expressions, her oddly frenetic motions her vocal delivery, which shifts between a low, menacing murmur to a formidable howl. Gemma Thompson is the unsung hero: though her stage presence is subdued, she’s the rare guitarist who is capable of adding texture and melodic accompaniment simultaneously, alternating between thick, roaring feedback (see: “I Am Here”) and demented surf riffs. Bassist Ayse Hassan studiously holds it together, and gets her moment of glory at the start of “Shut Up,” a consistent show-stopper. The crowd’s odd swaying mirrors Savages’ anxious, stuttering energy. During that song’s climax, I look out and see Norman Westberg standing perfectly still, towering above the crowd, eyes glazed over.
Mostly—with the exception of “No Face” and the hysterical “Husbands,” a personal favorite—the rest of the set consists of new material. Savages has only one album out and the group’s new songs are immediately, strikingly excellent. “We haven’t finished writing our new songs,” Beth explains,”and we figured, what the hell, let’s just play them.” The last song, “Fuckers,” is not entirely new (it dates back to a 2014 live single). It begins with repeating, single-note bass plunks and eventually flames out in a thrashing, full-band drone. The song’s ten minutes revolve around one chord and, mostly, one all-consuming command (“Don’t let the fuckers get you down”). There’s no encore.
Setlist: I Need Something New / The Answer / No / When In Love / Surrender / Adore / Shut Up / No Face / This Is What You Get / Sad Person / Husbands / Fuckers
Overheard: “It’s my favorite record store in the city, and no one even goes there!”
Best stage banter: Jehnny Beth: “Do you know a sad person?” [crowd cheers] “This song is for them. This song is called ‘Sad Person.’”
SHOW TWO: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 AT MERCURY LOUNGE
It’s cold as hell outside, the show starts in and out before 9:30.
Brian Chase, of Yeah Yeah Yeahs fame, is tapping a snare drum with what appears to be a pencil, then gently adjusting the snare itself in such a way that I can’t tell if it’s part of the performance or a mid-show adjustment. Savages is cleverly avoiding full-band openers; the effect prevents some middling rock act from having to compete with the London group’s assault, and helps bring out Savages’ atmospheric side.
Clad entirely in black—a motif that sticks for the rest of the residency Savages emerge at 8:02. close enough to reach out and fiddle with Gemma Thompson’s effects board, k. From such a spot the band’s volume almost seems too crushing for such a small space; Ayse Hassan’s bass licks pulse through my body, and Thompson’s feedback squalls overwhelm on tracks like “I Am Here.” (Every other song seems to open with this same formless guitar rumble. It’s like the Savages equivalent of generic tuning sounds.
The set is nearly identical to Monday night’s, the audience markedly less so. Mercury Lounge isn’t that much smaller than Baby’s, but it feels more intimate, and a shade older—lots of bald heads and grey hair in the audience. That’s probably a result of the early set time, though it could also have something to do with Mercury’s less fashionable location, in Manhattan a block east of touristy landmark Katz’s Deli. this one’s packed. There is more audience–band interaction, an even stronger sense that Savages is playing a club far smaller than their abilities. Jehnny Beth is leaning further out from the stage, shaking hands, acknowledging fans. “You guys are fucking cool!” one crowd-member shouts,
The set’s familiar, That white-hot burst of recognition at the start of “Shut Up” is a visceral treat. New addition “City’s Full”—an obvious Silence Yourself highlight—is a flailing shot of adrenaline. I’m struck by the confidence of the new songs,These songs are full of veering, chaotic verses and weirdly quotable choruses. There is “No,” an off-kilter, start-stoppy anthem that goes, “I asked the world and the world said, No,” and then there is “Sad Person,” which takes on a menacing, accusatory tone: “You are, you are! / A sad, sad person!” “Adore” is a low, moody build-up that Beth previously dedicated to the Charlie Hebdo massacre. It’s as close as Savages comes to conventional balladry, and the most powerful song in the band’s brief catalog. “I adore life / Do you adore life?” Beth repeats as the song lurches towards its immense apex. Nothing about the material seems tentative, half-formed, uncertain; the tracks are as tightly wound as the debut’s fiercest anthems, though maybe more cerebral.
Jehnny Beth’s stage presence remains a remarkable thing, her wild-eyed exertions and utterances a throwback to when rock singers were expected to be a little bit menacing and mysterious. Her hair is short, her arms constantly waving out from her body. I notice how many of the songs reflect the vocalist’s tendency to choose an ambiguously simple, evocative snatch of language and build a song around its repetition in such a way that you wonder how the hell nobody has thought to make this a song before (the obvious example: “I am here! I am here! I am here! I am here!”). You know how when you repeat a word or phrase over and over it loses shape and sounds like gibberish? That’s the way of these new Savages tracks. One goes: “I adore life! Do you adore life! I adore life! Do you adore life!” Another: “Don’t let the fuckers bring you down / Don’t let the fuckers bring you down. Don’t let the fuckers bring you down. Don’t let the fuckers bring you down.” (Clearly, yes, there’s a lyrical motif of triumph, as seedy as these songs sound.)
Again, no encore. Everything’s done by 9:30. No one seems especially bothered by that. “Fuckers,” which again pounds out for seven or eight minutes at least, is better than any encore would be.
Setlist: I Need Something New / The Answer / No / City’s Full / Surrender / Adore / Shut Up / No Face / This Is What You Get / When In Love / I Am Here / Sad Person / Husbands / Fuckers
Overheard: [dude talking loudly to his girlfriend after show] “Well, they’re so bass-driven that they can’t help but be Fugazi-esque, in a sense. Cuz, like, Fugazi’s songs are so bass-driven.”
Best stage banter: Jehnny Beth: “Is it too early? I think it is. I just woke up.”
SHOW THREE: SATURDAY, JANUARY 17th AT SAINT VITUS
The third Savages I know what the rest of the set will be. “The next song is called ‘Sad Person.’” “Okay, now they’re going to play ‘Husbands.’” the manic tenor of Jehnny Beth’s delivery—“Huz-bins! Huz-bins! Huz-bins!” anyway: Savages has only been playing about half of Silence Yourself at each show. The same half. I keep hoping they’ll perform the rest of the tracks (how about “Hit Me”? Holy fuck I’d love to hear “Marshal Dear”), but hope seems increasingly futile. It’s OK: I’d gleefully attend if the show were “Husbands” performed 20 staggering: those distant guitar squalls, those pounding, teasing tom-tom stutters. And, at least, the stage banter varies: “It would be appropriate to tell me to ‘Shut Up’ right now,” Beth joke before commencing “Shut Up.”
But there isn’t so much banter. Even the band seems a bit fatigued this time; they perform entirely in the dark and with markedly less interaction with the audience. What does get uttered has a slightly more sarcastic edge. “The effects of coffee on Jehnny Beth…Saint Vitus is the most punk-oriented of the three venues, and with its bottleneck design seems the least suited to the sizable crowds Savages attracts. The show audience spills out into the bar area, and there’s no proper backstage, so Savages themselves have to push through a male-heavy crowd simply to take the stage.
I’ve learned the new songs well enough to recognize them by name and intro, so I spend much of the set mentally ranking them. “Adore,” clearly, is every show’s centerpiece. A groaning warning of a bassline, and each time I’m torn apart by the quiet terror of its build-up. It’s typical Savages to merge ostensibly uplifting lyrics with immensely ominous instrumentation; one lyric in particular strikes: “I know evil when I see it / I know good and I just do it!” (Beth spits out the last two words like it’s code for a violent crime.) Next best new track—if it counts as new—is “Fuckers,” followed closely by “The Answer,” is now something of a revelation, combining a pummeling roar of guitar with an eerie, almost keening vocal melody.
There is also a taut, unsettling post-punk song called “Surrender” and a punkish tantrum called “This Is What You Get,” while “When In Love” is bouncy and the slightest bit New Wave-y. Oh: and there is also a new new song added to the show this time. It is alternately titled “Change” or “Evil” on setlists; the verses feature the sort of outright disco beat Savages have previously only hinted at, while the chorus refrain goes “Don’t try to change! / Don’t try to change!” Aside from this track, Saturday’s set was mostly predictable,
Setlist: I Need Something New / The Answer / No / City’s Full / Surrender / Adore / Shut Up / No Face / This Is What You Get / Change / When In Love / I Am Here / Sad Person / Husbands / Fuckers
Overheard: “We were just talking about music, it was awesome, she’s into like No Age and—”
Best stage banter: Jehnny Beth: “Are you okay? I can’t see you very much.” Dude in audience: “We can’t see you very much either!” Jehnny Beth: “Yeah, I know. That was intentional.”
SHOW FOUR: MONDAY, JANUARY 19 AT BABY’S ALL RIGHT
Another Savages show. Another Monday night. Another Baby’s All Right gig. But it’s not all the same shit.
For one thing, the support act, No Bra, is the oddest and most entertaining pick yet. No Bra is the project of performer Susanne Oberbeck. She is onstage in just a pair of shorts, alternately mumbling, shouting, and rambling along with some pre-recorded, tacky-as-Karaoke backing tracks. Oberbeck’s grim, German-accented delivery gives an unsettling edge to what might otherwise be a hilarious aesthetic. The best bit, “Munchausen,” which dates back to 2005, features her reciting a two-sided, cooler-than-thou conversation that name-checks both Kathleen Hanna and Stockhausen while featuring the excellent boast “I was cremated once!”
Tonight Savages’ manager, John Best, who flew in from London in time for Saturday night’s show and is still quite jetlagged. He is a charming, smiley Brit wearing a scarf indoors. He is attending three of the nine shows,
John Best, who also manages Sigur Ros and Cat’s Eyes, has said he thinks Savages’ new material is “more sophisticated,” though he didn’t enjoy Saturday’s show, at least compared to the last time he saw them perform these new songs in England just before Christmas. “I came in fully expecting awesome, and I didn’t get awesome,” he says. “It was like, ‘What the fuck?’” Nonetheless, he would go to all nine shows if he lived in New York. The album will be out at the end of summer and will “maybe” be called The Answer, he adds that “no one knows what it’s going to be called.” When I ask if he has any role in the creative process, he gets irate. “They won’t let me!” he responds. “I’d love to! This is my fucking job, I should be interfering!”
The show itself, by the way, is a fantastic one. A new week seems to have reenergized the band. “This is the second week of our New York residency!” Jehnny Beth announces, as if tracking progress for me personally, then throws herself into the proceedings. She spends the set stalking the stage, posing questions to the audience, signaling for people to move closer. During “I Need Something New,” I glance up and she’s not in sight; she’s jumped from the stage and started pushing her way through the crowd.
Oh, plus: new setlist. Or revised order, at least. Hearing something other than “I Need Something New” opens the set . “City’s Full” fills the opening slot admirably (a good thing), and “Surrender” is gone (a bad thing). “Adore” stills arrives around the midpoint, and Jehnny Beth dedicates it to Martin Luther King Day. “I think it’s an appropriate day for it,” she says. “The message is: love, not hate.”
Setlist: City’s Full / No / Change / I Need Something New / The Answer / When In Love / This Is What You Get / I Am Here / Adore / Shut Up / No Face / Sad Person / Husbands / Fuckers
Overheard: “This is better than Terminal 5!”
Best stage banter: Jehnny Beth: “We came to New York because we needed something new. And this song is called ‘I Need Something New.’ [pause] That’s the worst introduction ever.”
SHOW FIVE: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21 AT MERCURY LOUNGE
Instead, at the Mercury Lounge early enough to catch an opening set by Savages friend and collaborator Johnny Hostile, né Nico Congé. Paris-based Hostile opened up Saturday’s show (I only caught a few songs), runs the Pop Noire label, and produced Silence Yourself. In a previous life, he comprised half the duo John & Jen, with Jehnny Beth. Pale, gaunt, and very Parisian, he’s onstage in a leather jacket shrieking and sulking about “hours, days, and weeeeks!” with just a bass and drum machine for accompaniment. In one track, there are recordings of what sounds like a porn star discussing her craft. The set reminds me of 1980s Berlin, though in fairness I wasn’t alive in the 80s and have never been to Berlin.
Once it ends, Savages publicist Jackie is down in the wine cellar, and fits Hostile’s style nicely. There, the Pop Noire founder takes questions. “It’s not a career,” Hostile corrects in a thick French accent when I ask about his solo career. “I do this show cuz the girls asked me to do it.” He designed the set specifically for their shows, . “The mood, the aesthetic is similar… Everything is important in terms of aesthetic for Savages. So I designed it for them.” He’s not involved in their creative process, but is here “to observe” and get ready for recording Album Number Two. The best song? “‘Adore’ is amazing,” he raves. “‘Adore’ is, like, really touching people’s hearts straight away.”
From Hostile, Savages are spending the month living by the Graham Ave. L stop, which is pretty close to me. “We’re like animals, We hunt and look for food. That’s the only thing we do [during the daytime].” Our interview is interrupted by the sound of Savages shouting the chorus of “I Am Here” from their dressing room down the hall, like some bizarre warm-up ritual. That turns out to be the opener of their set, From the back of Mercury Lounge.
The highlights of the set, then, The climax of “Adore” is one. On the last syllable of the song, Jehnny Beth stretches out the word “Life” and circles around the note itself. “Fuckers,” meanwhile, is purged from the set, and remains absent for most of the remaining shows; in its stead, “No Face,” “This Is What You Get,” and “Husbands” make up an unholy triumvirate of fast, brash set-closers. If you are in a punk band, you should strive to close your sets with a song half as twisted and bizarre as “Husbands.”
“Don’t let the fuckers bring you down,” I mumble, dragging myself up towards the L Train before I pass out on First Avenue.
Setlist: I Am Here / I Need Something New / The Answer / City’s Full / No / Change / Adore / Fuckers / When In Love / Shut Up / Sad Person / No Face / This Is What You Get / Husbands
Overheard: Guy talking to his date after the show: “I knew like four of their songs well, but I generally liked the vibe, man.”
Best stage banter: Audience member: “She Will!” Jehnny Beth: “She won’t right now.”
SHOW SIX: SATURDAY, JANUARY 24th AT SAINT VITUS
Here’s the thing. Savages are astounding. Those aborted plans—they wouldn’t have been half as good as the opening blast of “City’s Full.” No other band playing in New York tonight captures the weird, menacing swagger of “Sad Person.”
“Adore,” besides being consistently incredible, gets a new spoken introduction at nearly every show. This time Jehnny Beth explains that it was inspired by a poet who was married and had two kids until “one day she day she discovered she was a lesbian.” She wrote a book called Crime Against Nature, Beth says, and I later learn that poet is Minnie Bruce Pratt. There’s a new new song. It’s an overtly funky track called “Slowing Down the World,” and it closes with an extended, guttural wail that sounds like something snatched from an early PJ Harvey record.
Setlist: City’s Full / I Need Something New / The Answer / No / Change / Slowing Down the World / Adore / I Am Here / When In Love / Shut Up / Sad Person / No Face / This Is What You Get / Husbands
Overheard: [after the show] “Their bass player is the best fucking bass player of all time. The bass player is the fucking anchor of that band.”
Best stage banter: Jehnny Beth: “We want your honest response. If it’s crap, you throw things at us.” [a few songs later] “You aren’t throwing anything.”
SHOW SEVEN: MONDAY, JANUARY 26th AT BABY’S ALL RIGHT
Here I was hoping to recount a dramatic tale of trekking to Baby’s All Right in the middle of a historic blizzard, my hair frozen and fingers raw with frostbite, only to arrive and see Jehnny Beth and co. performing to a mostly empty room consisting of me and their manager Instead, the blizzard proved disappointing as shit, but still ominous enough for Baby’s All Right to postpone the show until Thursday.
SHOW SEVEN, ACTUALLY: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28th AT MERCURY LOUNGE
The setlist doesn’t vary all that much, but the venue and audience does. Rarely, though, is anyone in the audience obnoxious enough to hinder the show itself. The last Mercury Lounge gig is an exception. There’s one jerk who lightly heckles the band, shouting out crap like “The drummer’s sexy!” and boasting about how far he’d traveled.
At one point, it even seems to disturb the band’s concentration; drummer Milton and bassist Hassan fumble the start of “Slowing Down the World” twice before giving up and moving on to “Surrender.” Audience woes aside, the set’s a good one, if astoundingly sweaty. Its striking that the three instrumentalists maintain a stoic, workmanlike stage presence while their vocalist is a furious bolt of post-punk energy. “The favorite new track was the one with relentless, fast guitar-playing triplets,” most likely referring to “The Answer.” “It sounded like horses racing.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxzd63PW-Ek
Setlist: I Am Here / Sad Person / City’s Full / No / When In Love / Slowing Down the World (aborted intro) / Surrender / Adore / I Need Something New / The Answer / Shut Up / Evil (or Change?) / No Face / This Is What You Get / Husbands
Overheard: “…yeah, well, AdAge fucks everyone over all the time.”
Best stage banter: Some asshole in the audience: “The drummer’s sexy!” Jehnny Beth: “What about the songs? That’s why we’re here—to play songs.”
SHOW EIGHT: THURSDAY, JANUARY 29th (OR, TECHNICALLY, EARLY MORNING 30th) AT BABY’S ALL RIGHT
Savages goes on at 1:00 AM. Here’s a play-by-play.
On The Merch table, CDs and vinyl. Silence Yourself and the “Fuckers”/”Dream Baby Dream” single. A cool poster. 8.4, Best New Merch Table. The merch seller is named Rebecca. What’s it like working merch for Savages? “Really good.” Did she catch the previous shows? “I’ve seen a few songs,” but mostly she’s been running merch. “We’re pretty much out of a lot of sizes!” she exclaims, pointing to a $50 limited edition sweatshirt.
Savages launches into a taut, frenetic “City’s Full” and then “I Need Something New,” with a crescendo that’s even more pounding than usual. It’s a speedy, workmanlike set; of course the band doesn’t seem remotely tired. “Shut Up” is—as ever—a charging flare-up of a song. the set has a half-faded, dreamlike quality. “Are we making you happy?” Jehnny Beth wonders aloud. They are. The band plays the new song it couldn’t get through the previous night. (Official title: “Slowing Down the World.”) This time they conquer it without incident; there’s that piercing vocal wail at the end, and Jenny Beth’s stage moves resemble The Macarena as performed by someone who has never seen it before and is receiving instructions over a walkie-talkie.
Some shoving breaks out during “I Am Here.” It’s tough to tell if it’s hostile or playfully; either way, a Savages show is an awful setting for cagey male aggression. Jehnny Beth: “You know that feeling when you’re in love and you don’t know how to feel? No matter what you do, you’re in the wrong? Well, don’t fucking listen to that. Just do it.” Cue “This Is What You Get.” Soon you’ll be in bed,” Jehnny Beth quips. “But now you’re not in bed. So let’s dance.” (Is “Husbands”—now the de facto set-closer—even more breathless and frantic than usual,
Setlist: City’s Full / I Need Something New / The Answer / No / Shut Up / Slowing Down the World / Adore / I Am Here / When In Love / No Face / Sad Person / Evil [previously listed as
“Change”] / This Is What You Get / Husbands
Overheard: [possibly referring to Johnny Hostile] “He’s, like, actually big in France. Johannes was telling me.”
Best stage banter: Jehnny Beth, just before “No Face”: “All right, let me see your faces. Closer. Another step. And from the back. No more fear.”
SHOW NINE: SATURDAY, JANUARY 31st AT SAINT VITUS
This is the end the last show.
It’s the last Savages set, as Jehnny Beth repeatedly exclaims (Again, it’s like she’s addressing me personally: “This is the end of the residency. You fucking killed it!”), and the lengthiest one (“Slowing Down the World” and “Fuckers” coexist, for the first time on a setlist, because nothing besides “Fuckers” can close out this residency. It’s also the most crowded set, perhaps because of weekend New York Times coverage of the band, though that theory makes little sense, considering the show was entirely sold out beforehand.
The end of “I Need Something New” triggers a sort of Pavlovian craving for “The Answer,” and when “Sad Person” isn’t immediately followed by “Husbands,” it all feels unsettling. To change things up, I stand in the back and watch Johnny Hostile run the soundboard, to see what it’s like to run sound for Savages. This turns out to be as boring as watching me during a Savages show, “Fuckers” goes on forever, with its brutal, atonal death-groove of a climax, but then it stops. And then I take the B-43 bus home, and think about how much I’ll miss this shit.
Setlist: City’s Full / I Need Something New / The Answer / No / Shut Up / Slowing Down the World / Adore / I Am Here / When In Love / No Face / Sad Person / Change or Evil / This Is What You Get / Husbands / Fuckers
Brief tally of Savages songs never played during the entire residency: “Strife,” “Waiting for a Sign,” “Dead Nature,” “She Will,” “Hit Me,” “Dream Baby Dream” (suicide cover), “Flying to Berlin,” “Words to the Blind.”
Overheard: Absurdly Tall Man, after being asked to move over: “It’s a concert. Just fucking deal with it.”
Best stage banter: Jehnny Beth: “This song is called ‘Fuckers.’ [pause] There are plenty of motherfuckers out there, so just pick one.”
Big Thanks for the words from Zach Schonfeld
The Fat Angel Sings 