Savages played an epic finale for their latest album ‘Adore Life’ with a sold out show at London’s Brixton Academy last night – honouring Leonard Cohen and Marianne Faithfull. See photos, footage and the setlist from the show below.
Their final show for their acclaimed second album ‘Adore Life’, which we hailed as one of the 50 best albums of 2016, singer Jehnny Beth told the capacity crowd that this would be ‘the last Savages show for a while’, as she and the band tore through a fearless celebration of life, love, punk and chaos.
With the likes of Ghostpoet and The xx’s Romy Madley Croft in attendance for the spectacle, the lights went down. Coming on stage to the sound of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Recitation’, in honour of the late, great poet and musician who we lost earlier this month, the band tore into the acidic vitriol of ‘I Am Here’, before the bittersweet release of ‘Sad Person’ and a feral outing of ‘City’s Full’.
From thereon, it was a blistering showcase of what makes Savages one of the finest live bands on the planet, with the band on the finest of form – tight-knit as a unit while seeming totally at one with their audience, as Beth repeatedly crowdsurfed and walked upon the hands of the clamouring mass who received her with religious fervour.
Paying tribute to Marianne Faitfhfull as she played across the pond in Paris’ recently re-opened Bataclan, Beth gave a heartfelt speech to the spirit and influence of Faitfull, before performing a rendition of her classic ‘Why’d Ya Do It’. See footage of the band covering ‘Why’d Ya Do It’ in Norwich earlier this week below
Savages played:
Listing it among our top 50 albums of 2016, we said: :While debut ‘Silence Yourself’ was the sound of a band charging to the front line to demand your attention, ‘Adore Life’ was a band who had already earned it – less abrasive and austere than their debut, but no less punk. This was less a record of anger and bile, more one of artfully controlled defiance and grace. No longer hiding behind noise, Savages were celebrating love, life, loss and what it is to be human. In a year dominated by uncertainty, fear and rage, Savages clenched to call for one simple, just cause: “Love is the answer”.”
