Interpol, Certainly Sir, and Lifestyle
The Middle East, Cambridge, MA
September 30, 2002

According to the web site and the tickets, the show started at 8pm with one opening band, so we arrived at 8:45pm ... just in time for Interpol, right? Wrong. TWO opening bands, first one starts at 9pm. I have little patience for openers these days, and this show did nothing to change that. The first opener, Lifestyle, would've been huge had they been around during the heyday of Cause And Effect. That's right, a heavy dose of 80's-style synth pop. The highlight of their set was a heckler calling for them to play "Chains Of Love". The singer then introduced the next song by saying "This song is about the future", to which the heckler replied "1989?". Second opener: Certainly Sir. How Interpol got stuck with these two crap acts is beyond me. If you're familiar with the VH1 series Bands On The Run, Certainly Sir are the Josh Dodes Band. Almost adult contemporary, really. The first song included a large man playing a cowbell, so Veronica coerced me to heckle him, using the SNL skit with Christopher Walken playing the famous producer working on Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" ... "I gotta have more cowbell!"

So after three hours of waiting, Interpol finally took the stage. They were ... okay. That's really all I can say. I love their album, but the live show was sparse and lackluster. A few guitar effects would do wonders for filling out their live sound and making it more atmospheric and lush. I was bored and exhausted by the end, as were all my compatriots (Veronica, our roommate Emilio, and Rob and Rudha up from Providence), so we left before the encore began.

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