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Cage The Elephant: Time flies by, they all sang along

There must be moments when Matt Shultz’s roadie wishes he worked for someone less energetic. Someone who’s not always moving, his microphone cable entangling the monitors. Someone who’s not always dropping into the photo pit, his microphone cable reaching snapping point. Someone who’s not always leaping into the crowd, his microphone cable entwining with a writhing mass of body parts.

But there must be moments when Matt Shultz’s roadie knows that the more he has to unravel that microphone cable, the better the show: Cage The Elephant’s thrilling live performance is fuelled by their mercurial frontman. Whether he’s doing scissor kicks off the mic stand, jumping on guitarist Nick Bockrath’s back mid-solo, rolling around on the ground, or high-stepping it, Bowie style, across the stage, it’s impossible to look away. There’s a hint of danger, the promise of the unexpected to everything he does but — with the possible exception of his offstage excursions — Shultz is clearly in complete control, never letting his theatrics distract from the band’s songs.

Tonight it’s a heady mix of swampy blues rock grooves showcasing all four of their studio albums. Although ‘Cry Baby’, the first track from the brand new Dan Auerbach-produced ‘Tell Me I’m Pretty’, kicks off the setlist, its stoned-out bliss is immediately followed by the take-no-shit swagger of ‘In One Ear’ from their self-titled 2008 debut. The fuzzed-out fun in the sun of psychedelic ‘60s throwback ‘Spiderhead’ and the jangly ‘Take It Or Leave It’ represent ‘Melophobia’, before the distorted garage rock of ‘Aberdeen’ showcase 2011’s ‘Thank You Happy Birthday’.

And so it continues for close on two hours as Shultz, his rhythm guitarist brother Brad, drummer Jared Champion, bass player Daniel Tichenor, Bockrath, and multi-instrumentalist Matthan Minster sweat and swing their way through 20 songs that represent their decade-long ascension from Kentucky anonymity to saviours of rock.

Mileposts along the way tonight are set highlights ‘Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked’ (the best of Beck and The White Stripes), ‘Shake Me Down’ (loud-quiet/beautiful-violent), relentlessly groovy ‘It’s Just Forever’, cinematic ‘Cigarette Daydreams’, and confrontation meets inspiration ‘Punchin’ Bag’. By the time they reach the finale, a ragged ‘Sabertooth Tiger’, Shultz (now sans shirt and jacket) launches himself into the crowd once more. This time, though, he scrambles onto their shoulders, clambers up a fire escape, and quite literally dives back into their arms. Never mind the symbolism, this is the stuff of rock ‘n roll dreams come true — for artist and fan alike.

Cage The Elephant
O2 Forum Kentish Town
11 February 2016

  • This article originally appeared on GraffitiPunctuated.
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Interviews Music

Mike Doughty: Let’s get down to business now

A lot’s changed for Mike Doughty in the 20 years since he lived in London. He split Soul Coughing, the “deep slacker jazz” band that brought him success and anguish. He quit the drugs that helped him cope. He went solo. He wrote a memoir. He wrote a rock opera. And he started taking selfies with various food products.

But what’s not changed are his feelings towards the city he called home for most of 1996.

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Interviews Music

Goldfish choose their own adventure

How would you recover from a gruelling US tour? Goldfish’s David Poole went surfing in the Maldives. Dom Peters, the Cape Town electronic duo’s other half, attended a music festival just outside his home town.

“That was probably the wrong thing to do,” Peters laughs on the line from the group’s studio. “I wore a hoodie, which helped, because everybody kept asking me what time I was playing.”

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Interviews Lifestyle

TT Mbha: the real deal

You can tell a lot about someone from their Instagram account. The Rock clearly likes working out, meeting fans, and raising his eyebrow. ‘Expresso’ presenter Katlego Maboe is a snappy dresser who meets many socialites and enjoys coffee and rugby. And Founding Director of Black Real Estate, Thato “TT” Mbha, is a dynamic, gregarious, well-travelled family man with no time for negativity. Always smiling (often with equally happy celebrities by his side), he’s mad about his two daughters, golf, fashion, and sharing inspirational quotes like “Pay attention to your dreams”.

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Interviews

Bruce Dube: divide and conquer

“Life,” says Bruce Dube, “gets to be hard. But it’s a beautiful struggle.”

He should know. Today, the 27-year-old rules a pan-African digital media empire that incorporates youth portals, e-commerce sites, gaming and video channels, recruitment resources, and classifieds platforms. But his beautiful struggle to the top — marked by failure, hunger, and even death — has been as taxing as it is inevitable.

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Live Reviews Music

Paul McCartney stands tall at The O2

Paul McCartney’s been at it for over half a century. He’s long since lost the element of surprise – yet tonight, during what’s billed as his 50th London show, that’s exactly what he delivers.

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Interviews Music

Dan Patlansky explores the blues

Dan Patlansky won’t soon forget 1 February 2014. It’s the day he opened for Bruce Springsteen at Johannesburg’s FNB Stadium.

“That was fantastic, even though it was one of the most daunting things I’ve ever done,” he remembers. “The scary part wasn’t the actual number of people, it was that none of those 80 000 people were there to see me,” he chuckles.

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Interviews Music

Lightning prevails for Arno Carstens

London in January is cold, dark, and miserable. Yet Arno Carstens is excited to be back in the city he called home while making his third solo album.

“My memories of recording ‘Wonderful Wild’ are that there was a lot of serious thinking and kind of hard work but amongst the angst was just great fun and partying,” he says, thinking back to 2009. “Most memorable was all the good friends I made.

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Interviews Music

éVoid come out of the shadows

The last time éVoid had done a full South African tour, PW Botha was president. The brothers Erik and Lucien Windrich were 20-somethings with a thing for beads and face paint. And their politically charged, African-flavoured ethnotronic songs were considered subversive enough to warrant police attention – and popular enough for jumping fans to cave in the floor of Stellenbosch Town Hall.

That was 30 years ago – an eternity in the music scene. So the siblings were understandably a little worried about doing it all over again to celebrate their self-titled debut album’s anniversary. No need: all 10 of their August homecoming shows were sell-out successes.

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Interviews

Herman Mashaba: self-made man

“Independence,” wrote Dr Maya Angelou, “is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.”

Sure, the author and civil rights activist was writing about her tumultuous life as a teenager in 1940s California. But her words would ring just as true for a multimillionaire founder of a South African haircare empire.

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