Thursday 1st October 2009 @ The Cooler, Bristol

The thing about The XX is that they look like their music; you know what you’re getting as soon as they walk on stage. The four piece of 20ish year old South Londoners have a uniform of black, sullen faces that avoid making eye contact with the audience and a fondness for gold jewellery. It’s minimal and stylish with more than an edge of melancholy. Their self titled debut album released in August received incredible amounts of hype from the music blogosphere and subsequently praise across the industry. I have struggled not to listen to it at least once a day since then.

Despite the support cancelling, their opening song, Intro, with its swirling guitar riffs and languorous climaxes, instantly seduced the crowd. They continued to play through the majority of their album with particular audience favourites being Crystalised and VCR. Basic Space received the biggest sing along, something which guitarist Romy Madley Croft notes has never happened before; for their opening date of their first headlining tour this is no mean feat.

The vocal interplay between bassist Oliver Sim and Croft created a wonderful and subtle tension in the room. They managed to remain seemingly nonchalant and yet their performance was arresting; I’m desperate to hear every line they utter! Whilst Sim softly crooned through each track he refuses to look at the audience, instead choosing to stare intensely into the middle distance. I’ve never before had a stronger yearning for someone to look me in the eye. Their lyrics are earnest, mostly about sex and incredibly self-aware. When Croft sings during Shelter, “Maybe I had said, something that was wrong/ Can I make it better, with the lights turned on,” it feels so honest; she’s sharing a lot of emotion.

Jamie Smith, on programming/samples, uses a drum machine to great effect. It’s fairly skeletal but there’s no waste, every beat finds its perfect place. This is where their R&B influences show through, a more danceable edge is added to the music and people did dance during some of the more upbeat songs like Islands. Well, enthusiastic swaying at least.

It’s a shame that Cooler was the venue of choice, it really does have some of the worst acoustics out of all of Bristol’s venues, but credit to The XX, they manage to sound more than half decent. The crowd wanted an encore but the band apologise as they simply don’t have any more songs. For such a young and inexperienced band, they have put on an incredibly mature performance. It’s a worry that the next time around they’ll be playing in a much bigger venue where I’m not sure the intimate magic of tonight can be recreated.

www.thexx.info

Serena Mitchell