After nearly a decade on “extreme hiatus” The Walkmen are back together playing live. It’s like they never left. But it feels like goodbye.
Anyone who saw The Walkmen in the mid- to late-2000s will attest to the fact that they were an impeccable live band; relentlessly spirited musicians with a catalogue of A-grade indie rock masterpieces to pull from. And any fan who missed seeing them at that time has been rueing their life choices for most of a decade, as the band took an indefinite hiatus in 2014. In the face of different creative ambitions, family lives and geography, it made sense for the five band members to take time away from the project they began right at the top of the century. Yet the shock to fans lingered viscerally for a long time. There was no forewarning and no fanfare; the band went out more or less at the top of their game after touring their excellent sixth (or seventh, depending on how you count them) studio album, Heaven. The record became something of a bittersweet swansong, particularly with the title track referencing “romantic tales of distant years” and their “gilded age”, but that was just the brand of knowing nostalgia you would expect from The Walkmen.
So anyway they’re back, still resisting fanfare and still delivering fiercely impassioned live shows. Judging by their Glasgow performance, they’ve picked up right where they left off.
It’s an early start for fans who themselves have other priorities these days; getting a sensible feed after work, childcare responsibilities, and finding a reasonable means of transport or affordable parking amidst the ongoing collapse of modern civilisation. We’re all a little older, it’s understandable. Support arrives promptly in the guise of Almost Nothing, the latest solo musical offering from reclusive Idlewild frontman Roddy Woomble. Also not one for fanfare, Woomble alongside frequent collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Andrew Mitchell (The Hazy Janes, Andrew Wasylyk) set about introducing their dreamy new project. Woomble himself describes the music as “electronic but with a songwriter’s soul” and it’s exactly that. A departure from his regular Idlewild material, sure, but it’s a natural continuation and progression of the sound he explored on 2021’s Lo! Soul. With only two singles released so far and the full album not out until the conclusion of this tour, the audience can only really watch and groove with the songs as they come, each densely hypnotic and building towards the climax of the set, which features more reverb than has ever swaddled Woomble’s voice before. That voice though, as captivating as ever, is the conduit for a soul that still has something to say after more than 25 years of songwriting.
The Walkmen are 20 minutes late taking the stage. It’s been 10 years, what’s another 20 minutes to wait? Astonishingly, once they do arrive they manage to cram 18 songs into a blistering set that takes in every album and feels simultaneously like a greatest hits showcase and a night of deep cuts. The sparse opening 1-2 of They’re Winning and Wake Up erupts into the furious Little House of Savages while the crowd barely has time to catch their breath. The understated charisma of frontman Hamilton Leithauser instantly fills the room as he sways back and forth, clenching the microphone in his iconic stance. With What’s In It For Me they ease the tempo a little but maintain the intensity before Leithauser declares, “Now we’re gonna rock” and they unleash The Rat. The sensory assault of guitar and drums could raze the entire SWG3 warehouse complex, had it not recently been renovated to withstand such hyperbole. In all seriousness, it would be possible to write a dissertation on this song – no doubt many have – but suffice it to say, there’s a reason everyone loses their shit when The Rat comes on at indie club nights. Matt Barrick’s Mach 1 drumming has to be seen to be believed, along with Paul Maroon’s scalding guitar work, but the layers of genius in this number extend beyond the instrumentation, the arrangement, lyrics and phrasing; it’s more than the sum of its parts and monstrously so. It is alive!
To follow up their biggest hit, coming so early in the set, the band mine a twisted romantic seam of songs from 2008’s You & Me. The percussive drive of Dónde Está la Playa and On The Water, the latter’s resplendent whistle outro receiving fervent applause, ahead of cascading crooner In The New Year further demonstrates why this band are so revered among peers, critics and fans alike. Their dynamic inventiveness has always been utterly endearing, even as they’ve morphed in and out of genres.
There’s limited commentary from Leithauser but when he does address the audience directly it’s usually to set the scene, as before Four Provinces, about an old watering hole in Washington, D.C., where the band members grew up. The song is about more than a bar but with that human – social and geographical – context in mind it’s an even more vivid trip we take there with the band. Again, it’s that unsentimental brand of nostalgia that The Walkmen trade in, like watching an old favourite TV show or movie from childhood and realising you don’t really like the characters anymore, except it’s your past life and the characters are real people including yourself, come and gone, loved, lost and loathed.
Juveniles and Angela Surf City form an irresistible jangly duo, with people mouthing the words into poised pint cups all the way back as far as the sound desk and beyond. As the set rolls towards a mesmerising crescendo Leithauser introduces All Hands and the Cook as “a blast of darkness from us” and sure enough, it’s a spellbinding cataclysm which they just manage to hold together by some unholy magnetism. As the only song from A Hundred Miles Off it represents quality over quantity. The set closes similarly with the eternally poignant title track from final album, 2012’s Heaven, and its refrain:
“Remember, remember all we fight for…”
There’s a reminder that this band had good reasons to hit pause before and with that, a tangible sense that our fleeting moment of unimaginable communion is almost over. Heaven sounds like the goodbye we never got, rendering this reunion a farewell. Before the melancholy descends though there’s an encore to contend with.
The band jubilantly rip through Thinking of a Dream I Had before winding this retrospective all the way back to the beginning. The plinky piano intro of We’ve Been Had signals both the start and end of the journey: Leithauser details how, as the first song the band wrote together, they heard and felt something special in it that compelled them to keep making music together. Ironically, the lyrical sentiment sounds as wry and weary as if it was written by a band 20-odd years into their career. Of course, there’s no way of knowing what the future holds for any of us, least of all for The Walkmen, and they have never seemed like a band particularly given to dwelling on the past. That leaves only the here and now for us to truly relish so before the final chords are struck and cymbals rung out Hamilton Leithauser, delighting in the present moment, steps off the front of the stage to high-five, fist-bump and show gratitude to the audience who have stayed the course. Having already grieved The Walkmen for a decade this ending is much more enjoyable. Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Words and pictures: Kendall Wilson @softcrowdclassic