A PERFECT CIRCLE
BRIXTON ACADEMY, LONDON
A night of hands-down wonder from the immersive rockers
The big Talking point of tonight’s show is plastered all over the walls before a note has even been played.
Signs warn attendees that anyone caught capturing images on their mobile devices will be ejected, so this evening is a wonderful throwback to a time when crowd and band moved, breathed and interacted as one singular organism.
It helps that A Perfect Circle are a collective capable of a totally immersive show. The silhouette of Maynard James Keenan stalks the back of the stage, slightly out of the light and barely visible. But if he is keen to avoid the limelight visually, vocally he dominates; his voice is a rich, warm instrument that draws gasps of disbelief at just how perfect he sounds on the nearly two-decades-old The Hollow.
This is far from a one-man show, though. Billy Howerdel’s ingenious guitarwork gives every song a skyscraper-huge canvas, and the rhythm section of drummer Jeff Friedl and bassist Matt McJunkins are locked in tight.
The set focuses on the recent Eat The Elephant album, and while many of the band’s classics are omitted, it’s hard to argue against the quality of the melancholic yet euphoric So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, the electro grinding of Hourglass or the… er… doomy The Doomed. After spending nearly two hours building to a crescendo, APC let the embers burn out with a beautifully low-key Feathers. There may not have been a sea of selfies of tonight’s proceedings all over Instagram at the end of the evening, but it matters not; when you’re this good there is little doubt that this gig will live long in the memory of everyone here.