In his songs, Interpol frontman and lyricist Paul Banks journeys down into the deepest, darkest recesses of the human psyche, writing about loves and obsessions no one but his psychiatrist hopes are autobiographical. In real life, there's at least one place Banks and his bandmates hadn't ventured: the New York City neighborhood Washington Heights. Home of the United Palace Theater, it's where the group stopped Friday night to wrap its fall U.S. tour and play its final stateside show of 2010.
"This is our first time this far the f---- uptown," Banks told fans, many of whom were likely making their inaugural visits to the far-flung 'hood, located well above Harlem in Manhattan's northwest corner. Conventional wisdom says there's nothing cool above 14th Street, but the United Palace, which is located on 175th, proves otherwise. Banks himself called the gilded, '30s-era movie house "beautiful," and its gothic aesthetic was perfect for Interpol.
The newly expanded New York City quintet played a career-spanning set, focusing on material from this year's self-titled fourth album and mostly ignoring its previous release, 2007's major-label experiment 'Our Love to Admire.'
The band opened with 'Success' -- a new one -- and while some fans hear in Interpol's last couple of albums a band betraying its roots and making a bid for the mainstream, the song shared much in common with the 17 tracks -- both old and new -- that followed. Guitarist Daniel Kessler's ringing intro gave way to funky-creepy bass and a stern, obsessive-compulsive dance beat -- apt backings for Banks' bone-dry Ozzy–meets–Ian Curtis vocals.
The main difference on such older tunes as 'Say Hello to the Angels,' which sounds theStrokes' 'Last Night' given a goth-rock makeover, and 'PDA' -- both Friday-night favorites from Interpol's 2002 debut 'Turn off the Bright Lights' -- was that the guitars were more scratchy than sensual and the musicians kept the bombast to a sub-stadium level
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