Hospitality at Whelans | Review

Hospitality Live at Whelan’s Saturday 24th May 2014

Whelan’s was mesmerised by the finest Ivy League postpunk melodies America has to offer on Saturday night courtesy of Brooklyn’s Hospitality.

Swept along by the sheer bliss of Brian Betancourt’s basslines, the sweet nothing voice of Amber Papini and the effect-laden wizardry of Nathan Michel’s guitar solos. Hospitality invites you into a brash, quizzical, fun filled world of lamenting lovers pondering the endless seas of the imagination, which they lay out in the course of their fifteen song set.

The opening brace of Inauguration and Friends Of Friends are startling; displaying the bookends of the groups writing styles, the latter stripped of its classical instrumentation reveals a heightened level of funkiness. Betancourt’s ability to plough a funky furrow beneath a sorrowful melody is quite phenomenal, akin to that of The Smiths’ Andy Rourke. Going Out showcases this ability furthermore while Papini proves she’s no token guitar mistress laying down some fine angular lines. The Right Profession (they’re not easy to change) distils the headspace of your average twenty-something jobbridger ‘I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, fuck it let’s dance’ into a two minute blast of despair and elation.

Despite releasing two of the finest indie albums of the last five years it’s clear by now that Hospitality haven’t managed to capture 60% of what they are live in a studio as yet and the prospect of them getting it right is tantalising. A reworked Nightingale yields the most notable increase in quality from studio to stage with a slower pace yielding more intensity in the music and more emotion in Amber Papini’s vocal. It’s similar to the transformation Pixies’ Wave Of Mutilation goes through to become Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf) and the results are just as palpable. Up until now Nathan Michel had been perched on a drum stool keeping time but the Princeton alumnus’ switch to guitar brings a different feel to proceedings thanks to his accomplished guitar work.

The 7-inch only one-two punch of Monkey and The Drift find Hospitality throwing a block party on the corner of Postpunk and Prog Rock. Before The Birthday brings the indie funk back into play as Amber Papini leads a sing-along tsunami of “Na na na nanana na na na”. A smouldering sullen eroticism permeates her vocals throughout Sullivan and Sunship as the spacious soundscapes evoke Parisian visions, especially during Sunship despite the Noirish watery depths of the lyrics. Once again the melodies of missing instruments are enhanced and embellished upon by the group to great effect.

When Brian Betancourt grabs a drum machine for Last Words it completes an unusual feat for any band, with all four members of Hospitality having now played more than one instrument throughout the performance without affecting either the pace of the show or the standard of execution one iota. Amber Papini even takes over the male vocal chorus of Last Words with ease. The influence of alternative ‘8os acts such as Talk Talk is apparent here and during Rockets and Jets as chiming slash chords flank synth motifs and the thoughts of using one guitar effect would be abhorrent.

However, I Miss Your Bones was obviously born of an angrier education with the influence of Joy Division yielding aggressive angular Sumner-esque guitar parts as the song explodes out of its rock’n’roll shackles midway as the instrumentation cascades forwards towards a beautiful derailment.

A solo encore performance of Call Me After sees Papini return to the forlorn persona portrayed in Sullivan and Sunship before the band gathers up their twisted carcasses and return for the charming Betty Wang.

Hospitality don’t need gimmicks, they have beautiful, beautiful music and they package it perfectly by being themselves. This was an “I was there” performance; one of the finest presentations of music Whelan’s has ever seen. Across town thousands of people listened to a group say “Thank you for coming” repeatedly in the hope that nobody would notice they’ve nothing to offer beyond their faces. I guess Idris Elba lied when he said he was “cancelling the apocalypse.”