5 minute read
Unity: IDLES and the AF Gang
from DIY, November 2018
by DIY Magazine
AS IDLES CROWN THEIR GAME- CHANGING YEAR WITH A HUGE, SOLD- OUT LONDON SHOW AT THE FORUM, WE MEET FANS, FRIENDS AND TOURMATES TO DISCOVER JUST WHY THIS BAND ARE SO IMPORTANT TO SO MANY.
WORDS: WILL RICHARDS. PHOTOS: EMMA SWANN.
Nights like this don’t come around too often. Across 2018, leading up to and in the wake of the release of the bombastic, vital ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’, and right up to tonight’s huge, sold-out show at London’s Kentish Town Forum, IDLES have cemented their place as the most important band in the UK right now. Don’t just take our word for it, either - there’s a 10,000-strong legion of fans (and they’re just the ones who’ve actively clicked ‘Like’) to whom ‘Joy…’ reads something like the Bible.
“We’re all a bit broken, a bit flawed and a bit damaged, but we feel like we’ve been fixed by IDLES,” says Louise Hughes, one of the admins of the fast-growing, bandapproved AF Gang Facebook community. “For me - and it sounds corny, but I’m Miss Corny of the AF Gang and I can’t help it - I find that [Joe Talbot] is the people’s poet laureate. He says it how it is and he says what you think. We find that we have so much in common and it just makes me really emotional, the way we help one another. We are all strangers, but we’ve all been brought together by our unity and love for this band. Honesty is the wayforward. It’s the only way you can be; wear your heart on your sleeve and be honest. It’s a beautiful thing. They just rip at your heartstrings. For ages I couldn’t listen to ‘Television’ without crying because of that one line: ‘Love yourself’.”
Starting out as a fan page purely set up to exchange stories, information and more about IDLES, the AF Gang has slowly but surely morphed into a manifestation of the band’s mission statement, a safe space to share vulnerabilities and worries as well as marvel at the togetherness that IDLES have fostered in so many. It also - almost too poetically to be true - gained its ten thousandth member on the 10th day of the 10th month of this year, on what also happened to be World Mental Health Day. “It’s grown in an elaborate way,” Brian Mimpress, who also admins the group, asserts emphatically. “Where it’s going to end, I don’t know. I said to Lindsay [Melbourne, another of the AF Gang's founders] the other day, I think the AF Gang will outgrow the band, unless they end up being The Rolling Stones and doing it when they’re in their seventies! I believe the AF Gang will be there forever now. I really do.”
This kind of devotion, fostered so quickly and organically, is abundantly clear at tonight’s show: there’s a palpable energy in the room tonight, one of a crowd fully aware that it may be the last time they see IDLES in a venue this size, and that they’re seeing a band at the blistering peak of their powers. ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’ is a record that champions vulnerability, openness and community, and these threads also sit at the heart of the show. Joe dedicates ‘Danny Nedelko’ to the immigrants that make this country a better place, with the titular man in question bursting out on stage at its finale, while ‘Divide & Conquer’ is introduced as an ode to the NHS.
In speaking to the band’s most devoted fans - a clan growing at great pace with each passing day - it’s clear that in laying their deepest fears and vulnerabilities on the line in songs, IDLES are one of the country’s most potent voices, forging the kind of connection only achieved once in a generation. AF Gang member Helen Reade can attest to this more than most.
“What they’re saying is what we really need to hear right now,” she explains before the show. “My partner passed away of cancer at quite a young age, and we have two children. When I first heard ‘Brutalism’, andheard that visceral grief, and that absolute internal rage that I couldn’t articulate - because I had to look after two kids - it just connected, and it became a daily routine. ‘I can get through my day, and I can cope with everything, if I listen to this album, because this person, whoever he is, understands where I’m coming from.’
“My daughter then went to live out in Spain, as part of her university degree, and IDLES were playing at BBK Festival,” she expands, beginning one of a host of stories we hear tonight from fans concerning either the music of IDLES or the members themselves, all helping them gain understanding, clarity and strength in their own lives. “I said to her, go and see IDLES, they’re amazing! She said ‘Who?!’ and I said ‘Listen to this album, go and see IDLES, and try and interview them!’ because she was doing a radio course. They agreed to do the interview, and Freya and Joe sat together talking for hours about loss and grief. There was this 19 year-old kid saying ‘my dad died a couple of years ago’ and Joe going ‘well my mum died’ and the two of them had this really beautiful bond.
“That’s what’s so beautiful about the vulnerability that IDLES offer. If you can make yourself vulnerable, you can make really meaningful connections with people, from joining [AF Gang] in the low hundreds, to now coming somewhere like this and seeing literally loads of mates who understand your back story. We’re all carrying something damaged, and to be able to say ‘Here’s my vulnerability and this is your vulnerability’: it could be a mental health problem, a grief problem, or just ‘I don’t feel like I belong anywhere’ - there’s always a hand being held out.”
This hand being held out firmly goes both ways between band and fans too, as frontman Joe Talbot explains: “It’s about building an energy and a relationship and a dialogue with your audience. That hasn’t changed, it’s just that from some of the people that have come to our shows, they have been mindful and proactive, and built something way more important than IDLES.” He describes the community spirit around the band as giving him “a rejuvenation,” as he explains: “I have faith in people again, and faith in a small pocket of the internet again. It’s a relief - this album of ours is a very personal thing that we’ve done, and when you release an album that you care about, it’s like falling backwards and hoping that you’re caught, because you’re laying yourself bare on a record, and the reaction is a catch in certain ways. It’s not about getting /10s, it’s about going to these shows and playing those shows, and people allowing you to be vulnerable and allowing you to feel safe in that room to give everything that you have. It’s a gift, and that’s something we’ve learned from the AF Gang - there are lots of people out there that are willing to be vulnerable themselves, and allowing us to be vulnerable back, and it’s magic. It’s not something we ever comprehended.”
“In the words of Kathleen Hanna: girls to the front,” Joe demands to the sweaty mass of bodies before him at the Forum before closing tonight’s set with the frenzied ‘Rottweiler’. The crowd parts and a sea of audience members switch places without a hitch. The often macho bravado of punk shows is absent, replaced by a genuine sense of community and respect, and a sold-out crowd brought a little bit closer to each other by this band.
2018 has been a tough year for more reasons than it’s possible to count - most of which Joe denounces across the show. Being able to sweat, sing and dance out these frustrations to the most empathetic music being made right now, as well as being made to feel part of a genuinely important musical community, make tonight one that will live long in the memory.
