Fuck Buttons at the Button Factory, Dublin on Saturday 14th of September 2013

Fuck Buttons are a hard band to pigeon-hole. A controversial name means that they will never crack the main stream, but their music could have the crossover appeal for rock and dance fans. It’s post-rock with electronic beat; it’s dance music that focuses more on the wall of sound than the beats; it’s 21st century shoegaze.

Whatever it is, when they take to the Button Factory (the ‘Fuck Button Factory’ for one night only) in the early hours of Sunday morning, the crowd are ready. They have been warmed up by The Haxan Cloak and Forrests and most, undoubtedly, by a quantity of alcohol.

As opener Brainfreeze kicks off, the drums – the ones working through Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power’s mass of electrics – shake the room. It’s music you can just about dance to, and the crowd don’t need to be asked twice. Their beats are almost industrial but uplifting at the same time. They have a trademark drone that never goes away, sounding like a game show buzzer slowed down to one thousandth of its speed.

Surf Solar is almost a hit when it’s released second up. Compared to its predecessor, it has a veritable pop hook lasting the entire 10 minutes of the song. All the while the screen show beautiful, abstract images and the light set-up, possibly the best in the city, make sure that the party mood is never forgotten.

One thing that is forgotten is the audience’s tiredness. They move and jump constantly, thrusting limbs (usually arms) into the air. As the smoke billows from the stage, it meets sweat rising from the crowd, quickly becoming a hot mess below.

As Hung and Power play through Colours Move and Olympians (the former from drone heavy ‘Street Horrrsing’, the latter from the dancier ‘Tarot Sport’), 20 minutes pass by in the blink of an eye. Sentients (from the ‘diet’ industrial ‘Slow Focus’) has a comparative punk length, lasting only six and a half minutes.

Hung and Power look up from their controls occasionally, but offer little more than smug smiles most of the time. They have a right to feel smug too, as the crowded venue moves to their every hint of sonic inflection, staring towards the stage in almost astonished awe… though that may be partly down to the alcohol.

There are hip-hop influences here, 8-bit sounds there, all moulded into a sound that is undeniably Fuck Buttons. And live, it’s so much better. There is an immediacy, a presence to their music which their albums can occasionally miss. There is raw, visceral energy to the sound. The world that Fuck Buttons inhabit is depraved yet glorious.

And that is how the Fuck Button Factory is left when the two make their way off stage for the final time shortly before 2.30am, Space Mountain their exit music.

Fuck Buttons Photo Gallery

Photos: Aisling Finn