Editors - Preston Guild Hall - 07/03/10
TOM Smith grips his mic stand, knuckles whitened by his iron grip, rocking backwards and forwards.
A vision of sinew and sweat, he cuts a figure of a man possessed like a slightly demented scientist engrossed with his latest experiment.
Smith, eyes closed and mouth open as if he is about to gorge on the microphone before him, lurches from one pulsating guitar riff to the next in his own dark yet thrilling world in which the Editors reside.
For a band with two number one albums already, millions of album sales in the bag and key slots at Glastonbury, to be playing at a venue the size of the Guild Hall is quite remarkable.
Editors' dark, theatrical and brooding power seem out of place in a hall more used to holding graduations and comedy nights. But it doesn't matter to Smith, whose consciousness seems immune to anything but the thumping bass and anthemic songs that has become their staple.
Smith's introspection and social commentary - best depicted in the quite brilliant Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors - have garnered a growing band of writhing disciples, who hang on his every word as if it is a manifesto they must follow.
For a band so acclaimed by the critics, they still remain wonderfully peripheral to the mainstream. Lord only knows what Simon Cowell would think of their experimental electronica and whizzing synths.
And there's that voice. Smith conjures up a cauldron of other-worldly beauty to unleash menacing yet somehow comforting vocals that tear into your soul and leave you breathless.
New album In This Light and On This Evening is a worthy successor to the grandiose An End Has A Start and The Back Room, yet is unlikely to add to their sole top 10 single.
In Smith's world, he is unlikely to care. And nor should we.
Andy Sykes
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Weather for Preston
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Light sleet
Temperature: -3 C to 3 C
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