And So I Watch You From Afar at The Button Factory | Review

And So I Watch You From Afar at The Button Factory, 13th of December 2013

“It’s awfully mild isn’t it? And for December!” You couldn’t escape that sort of chatter in Dublin all day Friday. But if you too felt like avoiding that painfully repetitive bit of small talk ’til the sleet and the snow came and everyone would stop complaining (yeah right) then you could have done worse than hit the Button Factory for Belfast-natives And So I Watch You From Afar. There was nothing “mild” about this gig, except perhaps the hearing loss, or the fear that one of the overzealous head-bangers would accidentally throw themselves over the balcony.

The band released their first album since the departure of founding member Tony Wright in 2011 this year, and judging by the fact that the gig opens and closes with tracks from it it’s obvious that they’re on as much a creative high now as they ever were. There’s very little ceremony or “getting into it” involved at the gig’s beginning and the band get right in there with Big Thinks Do Remarkable which establishes the mosh-pit early.

Three movements or sections make up the gig. The first is a raucous extravaganza marked by Chris Wee’s rumbling metal drums and the high notes the guitarists use to inject their tunes with melody. By the second song the stage can’t hold Rory Friers any more and he’s off surfing the crash barrier. By the third song, when BEAUTIFULUNIVERSEMASTERCHAMPION pulls back momentarily and Rory softly plays the strings on the head of his guitar people are actually “shushing”, at an ASIWYFA gig, unable to miss a note.

To call the second section “the quiet bit” would be flat out delusional, but anyway we’ll call it the quiet bit. The drums here are more hoppy than before and the whole section culminates in the melodic 7 Billion People all Alive at Once. It’s a moment to allow us to breathe before the all-out war of the set’s conclusion, but it doesn’t dip in energy or interest for a moment. This final section is made up of three songs from the band’s eponymous debut album and when it begins with Clench Fists, Grit Teeth…Go! the mosh-pit seems to become this living organism reacting to distorted sound-waves the way oceans react to hurricane winds.

You know the way bands always say “it’s great to be back in Dublin, it’s always such a special place for us” and you’re thinking “yeah sure”? Well after the second section of the gig when Rory describes hearing his parents talk about Dublin as a mythical place as a child, mixed with the uniquely positive attitude in the venue (even in the jumper-returning-to-owner mosh-pit) you can’t help but feel he actually means it.

The gig is masterfully constructed out of tracks from ASIWYFA’s three albums in such a way as to minimise dips in intensity, leaving you without a single moment of dissatisfaction. Even the close of the encore is the repetitive chanting of “we know” from Young Brave Minds that entrances you into a reverie so you’re barely sorry the thing has ended. Instead you and everyone else are left smiling and clapping dumbly at the empty stage slowly coming to the realisation that you’ve been rocked pretty damn hard.

Ever increasingly popular synth-pop group Tvvins open the evening’s entertainment in The Button Factory with a set featuring pretty vocal robotising, teeth-chattering levels of bass and a snare that stabs you right in the ear. Their track Two Worlds reveals their quality and they are followed by straight up electronic troubadours Ghosts. It’s a laptop-heavy ambient assault of loosely relatable sound that bridges the gap between the more melodic sounds of the openers and the head-liners.