Pontiak & White Hills @ Luminaire
March 09 2010 @ Luminaire, London.
The problem with gigs as eagerly and frenetically anticipated as tonight’s is that it is almost inevitably a disappointment. There is no way that Pontiak could avoid those little moments of ‘meh’ that permeate some of their records, there is no way that White Hills could be as rapturously entrancing as their recent eponymous album and there is no way that, in this little venue, it could be loud enough or atmospheric enough. Wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!
What actually transpires is two hours of absolute aural carnage as the two aforementioned bands rip the place apart with a series of titanic hammerblows in the form of riff driven rock ‘n’ fucking roll. Seriously, these guys know how to hang it all out there and leave an audience gasping.
Taking to the stage first come the brothers Carney, and by the way if there was any doubt that these three guys were brothers, seeing them in the flesh instantly dispels that, talk about peas from pods, and immediately they launch in to a thundering tune and don’t look back from there on in.
I posses all of Pontiak’s recorded output but the only track that I recognise tonight is the second song they play, which I think was ‘World Wide Prince’ from their recent ‘Sea Voids’ album, there are hints of familiarity elsewhere but such is the transformation of their live experience it's hard to tell but this really doesn’t matter. What matters is the noise, the power, the sheer scale of the sound that throbs physically through Luminaire‘s small surrounds. This is a serious sonic assault.
Before we know it they are taking their bows and it is over, forty five adrenaline charged minutes have flown by and we are left breathless and stunned.
In the intervening moments we are left to ponder what is to come next. Surely there’s no way that White Hills can follow that, is there? The bar has been set so impossibly high they can’t be expected to reach the same level. Wrong, wrong, wrong again!
The White Hills ethic is slightly different; it is somewhat more about the show, more about the dynamic and less about the bludgeoning but the effect is equally as thrilling. It tells you something about the confidence of the band that they pulled the mighty ‘Three Quarters’, a track of the calibre most bands would kill to be able to finish with, as their second song in and it only goes upwards from there.
Frontman Dave W is a whirling dynamo, throwing rock star shapes all over the stage, by contrast bass player Ego Sensation is a picture of louche cool, clad in spandex and glitter and rocking in knee high purple boots. Between them the crank the pace and intensity way, way past fever pitch until all too soon it’s over and we are cast out in to the cold Kilburn night, ears ringing and safe in the knowledge that we are going to have to go a long, long way to see a better gig this year.