IDLES celebrate second number one album with a Leeds Love In

Project House was home to the hottest tickets in town on Thursday night as IDLES popped up at late notice for a brace of intimate shows.

In support of their new record TANGK and in optimistic anticipation of their second number one album the nice guys of post-punk treated a fortunate slice of their luckiest, local-ist and plain loco-ist fans to an hour long set at at 1,000 capacity Project House. Twice!

Having earlier in the week been resigned to not seeing the group until their UK tour kicks off proper in November (with the exception of a few July appearances) the prospect of a mini IDLES hit proved to be a popular one, so much so a second earlier show was added to the original plans.

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Though it marks their first return to the number one spot since Ultra Mono, TANGK shows some significant changes for the band, the first of which is clear as soon as opener IDEA 01 kicks in. The influence of producer Nigel Godrich. The album feels like an elevation in composition and production but looses none of the heart, soul and resistance that IDLES would be unrecognisable without.

Both shows see the band pull mostly from the new record, with 8 tracks from it making up over the half of both setlists. Despite being less than a week old both the band, and the fans waiting to see them out on tour, will be thrilled to know that the set nor the show suffers from it, even with some of the slower, softer and more nuanced of the new numbers sitting next to behemoth tracks like The Wheel and Never Fight A Man With A Perm.

It’s been widely written and read that TANKG is an album of love songs. “This is our album of gratitude and power. All love songs. All is love.” No one in attendance is unfamiliar with IDLES and so none are unfamiliar with the love and appreciation that is and always has been bestowed upon the crowd by front man Joe Talbot but it feels doubly so tonight. He takes every opportunity to thank them. To let them know they are why the band are here, why they can continue to do what they do.

“You’re number one to us” Joe insists. The feeling is mutual Joe, even if the chart didn’t reflect it. The fact it does is just the cherry on top.