Live Review

Interpol – Corn Exchange, Cambridge

• 31st Mar 2011

New York’s finest arrive in Cambridge as part of a whistle stop tour of England, which also sees them taking in Bournemouth, Bristol and Leeds.

Having lost 2 bass players, including Carlos Dengler in under a year, you could forgive Interpol for going through the motions. Such a ‘crisis’ would be enough to see most bands fall by the wayside and be resigned to rock history. Luckily, Interpol aren’t like ‘most’ bands.

Interpol have never been a big ‘singles’ band in the UK, but as Arcade Fire recently proved with sell out shows at The O2 Arena, that’s not the be all and end all. Interpol fall firmly into the category of a band you have to see live to see them at their full potential. Musically they are still very much at the top of their game, and Paul Banks vocals are as brilliant as they are distinctive.

With four studio albums behind them, they now have a live set to rival most bands on the circuit and with absolute classics such as “Not Even Jail” and “Evil” sitting alongside highlights from their latest eponymous album, namely “Barricade” and new single “Lights”, you can see why they are very much a band still in demand.

Band in Crisis? Not a bit of it.