Alkaline Trio – The Underworld, Camden Town – 25 January 2010

Words by Brendan Monteiro / Photos by Marcus Maschwitz

If only walls could speak the Underworld would tell a tale of a phenomenal night where a three piece from Chicago showed london why intimate gigs are way better than massive venues. Alkaline Trio are set to release their seventh studio album titled ‘This Addiction’, and what better way to celebrate this with a show at the Underworld. News of such a small showcase with one of the greatest punk bands spread like a bad case of chlamydia and within 4 minutes the night was sold out.

Outside the venue touts scurry around like chickens with severed heads, it’s comical how they ask every passer by for tickets, It’s evident by this that the show tonight is made up by majority die hard fans.

Inside the venue and with no support act everyone waits patiently, there is a calm in the air, that same calm just before all hell is about to break loose. The crowd starts ranting “Trio, Trio, Trio” and with a quick reply of “how are you doing camden town?” from Matt the band ease into This Addiction, the first single from the upcoming album. It’s textbook Alkaline Trio, straight up punk rock with catchy melodies, riddled with Matt’s dark charm. If this is a base of what the new album is going to be like then 2010 is definitely going to be Alkaline’s year. What’s also quite staggering is the proportion of the crowd screaming the words back at Matt, it’s as if everyone has got an LP player at home and has been killing the 7” that the tickets for the show were sold with.

Moving on, Matt and Dan take turns at wowing the crowd with a setlist that could only be in a fans wildest dreams, encompassing a little from pretty much every album. Fatally Yours and Stupid Kid get all arms raised early on in the night with the latter causing fans to go mental. Time To Waste sounds larger than life and the eerie piano sample mid section seems spiced up just for tonight. Old classics like Goodbye Forever, We’ve had enough, Private Eye and This Could Be Love further cement and astonishing set but it’s the obscure Sadie that wins my vote for song of the evening. It’s so dark but at the same time so alluring, it’s Matt’s delivery of Sadie that makes it so amazing. This is a fact with all songs tonight, it’s the way they are put forward, Matt and Dan sing with so much conviction and passion. They have a gift of making the most sinister and grizzly things sound beautiful. Line’s like

“like a dog shitting razor blades”
or
“I shat the bed, lying in it wide awake for day’s”

should shock any sane person but they are sung in a way that almost romanticizes the song and it’s this fact about tonight that wins me over. I personally have seen the Trio before and this was by far the best gig of theirs that I have witnessed. It seemed like the band enjoyed it just as much as the fans and it looked like they were quite at home playing a little dingy gig. Merely half of what they put in would of won the crowd but they dug deeper to create something truly unforgettable. If you weren’t there, buy a stub on e-bay and pretend you were.

Setlist: This Addiction, Fatally Yours, If We Never Go Inside, Stupid Kid, In Vein, My Friend Peter, Dead On The Floor, Time To Waste, We’ve Had Enough, Sadie, Dine Dine My Darling, Calling All Skeletons,Cringe, Crawl, Goodbye Forever, Private Eye, This Could Be Love, Radio

This post is tagged AK3, Alkaline Trio, Camden Town, Camden Underworld, Dan Andriano, Derek Grant, Hassle Records, Heart & Skull, The Underworld, This Addiction