By Will Wainewright
No one does melodrama quite like Editors. Whatever reservations you have about the Birmingham band’s third, most recent album In This Light And On This Evening, to see the ever-grandiose Tom Smith stand, Christ-like, and intone first album classics such as Munich and Blood in his peculiar tenor guarantees a compelling live spectacle. It is not so much singing as oratory from this operatic impresario. Worryingly for them, however, it was solely songs from 2004 debut The Back Room plus a couple of others that ensured this gig was a success.
Three albums in, Editors are a band who have successfully straddled the competing demands of musical creativity and commercial success, with their third album topping the UK albums chart. However, from their latest it was only the rollicking Papillon that came close to matching earlier offerings for pace and electricity.
To say Editors have gone off the boil would be harsh, but the older age of the Leeds crowd is testament to the fact that Editors have failed to pick up new fans with recent material. That is fair enough – at least they continue to be innovative and bold and refuse to dilute and expand a winning brand in search of arena status in the style of Coldplay and Kings of Leon. Those young’uns are missing out anyway, as Editors are one of those bands that reach another, truly unexpectedly gripping level in a live setting. For Tom Smith, occasions like these are the next best thing to choir practice