Concert Review - Protomartyr, Auckland New Zealand, 2018

Protomartyr

21st February 2018
Whammy! Bar, Auckland, New Zealand.

Review & Photography by Sarah Kidd.

It may have taken Protomartyr nearly ten years to make their way down to this side of the world, but for the fans who had managed to nab a ticket to the sold out show at Whammy on Wednesday night it was well worth the wait. Formed in 2008 the four piece from Detroit, Michigan have just recently released their latest album Relatives in Descent, heralded as their best yet. Written in the wake of the American elections, Protomartyr like many American artists have found their work being influenced by the change in POTUS and the creeping uncertainty about the future of the country they call home.

Arriving on stage to an eager collection of fans, the band says nothing, looking at the audience with but the slightest of nods acknowledging their presence. A small wooden stool has been placed beside lead vocalists Joe Casey’s mic stand; dressed in a dark grey suit jacket and dress pants he places three bottle of Peroni on it before wrapping his hand around the microphone. Turning slightly towards the band, Casey simply moves his head and they begin, hitting the audience straight away with the track ‘My Children’. Casey stands completely upright; his straight and direct posture in many ways a physical representation of their songs and lyrics. His microphone stand is set slightly higher than he is, and from its crest he plucks the microphone, cradling it in his hands, moving from speaking into it like a lover speaks to a lost soul to unleashing his rage against its plastic coated body. The audience lined along the front absorb it all, many with their heads down, eyes closed, others letting the music move through them and interpreting it through undetermined patterns involving their arms and the tapping of their feet.

Moving through the first half of the set, the band never once speaks to the audience; instead preferring to let the music do so for them. With songs such as ‘Windsor Hum’ and ‘Male Plague’ that hum and vibrate, the repetitive and urgent chords of Greg Ahee’s guitar winds itself around the combined bass lines of Scott Davidson and Alex Leonard on drums. In fact it is this repetition not just in the actual musical chords of this performance but in Casey’s lyrics that make the entire set so compelling. While Casey often seems to be singing to a faraway entity, looking down at the floor, or at the walls around him as he paces in a small half-circle; every so often he raises his eyes and locks onto a fan, holding their gaze with an underlying sense of both ferocity and compulsion as he sings such lines as “She’s just trying to reach you”; a line that ties together both the first and the last track of their brilliant new album.

We are just past the halfway point of the set list before Casey addresses the audience, thanking them for their welcome and announcing that it is the groups first time being here on our fair shores, to which the audience responds with enthusiastic applause, an action that seems to take Casey aback for a second as he raises an eyebrow. “Now we’re getting to the meat in the set” he smiles wryly, before the four piece once again roar back into life, pulling the audience down with them as they delve into the darkness and lay everything bear before examining it carefully.

Casey’s vocals are on point throughout the evening, moving from spoken word like a more primeval version of Cohen to all out shouting, his voice manifesting into hands that reach out and take you by the shoulders, appealing to your senses and logic, imploring you to consider all that surrounds you in society and life itself. Watching the band members perform, each appear as if in their own singular cell; Ahee, often with his head thrown back furiously works the chords of his guitar in sections while Davidson performs a hypnotic two step on the right hand side of the stage. These cells though are part of a much larger living and breathing organism; while visually they appear detached, aurally they are bonded together, the personification of perfect symbiosis.

All too soon we have arrived at the end of the set; Casey once again thanking the audience and promising that they will be back … maybe. Apparently getting to play in New Zealand was a goal, and they have now achieved that goal, so they may as well go ahead and break up. Casey’s dry humour prompting the audience to laugh while simultaneously offer up a comedic “awwww” of disappointment. Finishing on the last track of their latest release entitled ‘Half Sister’, its closing notes a crescendo of emotion the band bid the crowd goodnight before shuffling off stage.

An encore was unsurprisingly loudly demanded, sixteen songs had flown by in a breeze, and while it was their last song of the tour, the audience needed just that little bit more. Feeling this desire Protomartyr quickly arrived back on stage and delivered two more stunning numbers; ‘Why Does it Shake’ and ‘Scum, Rise!” Tousled in the most satisfactory of ways the audience step back and smile, disappearing into the night air with the songs of Protomartyr as their company; and what exceptional company it is.

Protomartyr performing live in Auckland, New Zealand, 2018. Image by Sarah Kidd.

Were you there at Whammy! Bar for this beautiful post-punk extravaganza? Or have you seen Protomartyr perform somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!