186. At The Drive In

O2 Academy Brixton

9 March 2018

Reforming once is a dangerous game. Reforming twice is borderline masochism. But At The Drive-In, those twitchy Texan evangelists of post-hardcore pandemonium, were never much for playing by the rules. Seventeen years after imploding at the peak of their powers, they’re back, older, louder, and still looking like they could start a revolution with a guitar lead and an amp.

I had already witnessed their unholy powers at Alexandra Palace last year, where they made Royal Blood look like semi-finalists. So, naturally, when the word went round that they were headlining Brixton, I gathered up a few friends and we headed into Zone 2.

They hit the stage like they’d been fired out of a cannon: guitars screaming, drums detonating, crowd detonating louder. For a brief, shining second, it’s glorious, then reality crashes in. The sound mix. Sweet mercy, the sound mix. Frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s vocals were buried somewhere deep beneath the guitars, the bass, and possibly the Victoria Line.

Still, chaos is the currency of At The Drive In, and even Brixton’s acoustics couldn’t suppress it completely. Cedric hurled himself across the stage like a caffeinated shaman, tangling himself in mic leads and flinging stands like javelins. Omar Rodríguez-López, meanwhile, stood calm amidst the storm, zen-like, detached, fingers flicking across the fretboard as if he were conducting electricity rather than playing guitar.

The setlist was a seesaw between old and new all delivered with earnest conviction. The hero of the evening was Keeley Davis on rhythm guitar, keeping the whole thing from collapsing. By the end, they looked wrecked, the audience looked wrecked, and Brixton’s sound engineer was probably hiding in a skip out back. They may have lost this battle with the sound board but At The Drive-In still won the war.