Interpol Live at Assembly Hall, Champaign, IL September 24, 2005

The students at U of I welcomed Interpol with open arms (for the most part)

While Assembly Hall was nowhere near being sold out, those who did show up were in for a very nicely done, albeit short performance from the New York band. Unsurprisingly, the majority of Interpol songs played were from their second album Antics leaving fans of the older Turn on the Bright Lights somewhat disappointed. The general feel of the show was relatively laid back as the band swept through "Next Exit," "NARC," and "Take You On a Cruise." Things didn't start to pick up until the singles "Evil," "PDA," and "Obstacle 1," and from that point on the band and the crowd picked up the energy quite a bit. A couple of surprises were also in the setlist, as they played the unreleased "Specialist" and, as played as their encore, the beautiful "Untitled." One of the gripes of a few fans that attended the concert was that many that were present were sitting for the majority of the concert, and in general the crowd appeared to be more of a casual rock crowd, which isn't too surprising considering the tickets were only $10, so just about anyone could go without feeling ripped off. This wasn't always the case however, as in the moments mentioned earlier everyone was definitely getting into it, and the band even offered up an extended version of "Public Pervert" as the crowd clapped along to the beat provided by drummer Sam Fogarino, and displayed one of Interpol's rare moments of pure improvisation. Another great crowd pleaser was the aforementioned "Untitled" which many people, including me, were not expecting to hear at all, much less as the opening encore song. Overall, it was a good show, though not quite as even as some of their previous outings (including their Q101 Block Party show). The main disappointment was the short-ish length of the performance as it clocked out at just over an hour, and the meager two song encore that totaled about 5 minutes and seemed to catch everyone by surprise, and was most surprising to me due to them having not played their latest single "C'Mere." Other than that it was still a solid show, as each of the guys were in top form, and certainly well worth the price of admission.

★★★¾