Editors at The Wiltern

I read that Princeton are from Eagle Rock, so I'm guessing they go (or went) to Occidental College - they're far too clean cut to be part of the hipster community south of Colorado (or SoCo as I like to call it...) They are clearly a distant cousin of Vampire Weekend but without the Paul Simon fixation, which is obviously a good thing. However, naming your band after a university encourages people like me to typecast them as students - not an easy image to shake off when the time comes... They were good though...

Or at least a lot better than the self-indulgent pile of festering crap that is The Antlers... I have to thank them though - I was under some misguided notion that everything coming out of Brooklyn was hip and interesting. The Antlers are neither... Proggy keys, some MBV-lite guitar, a drummer who looks (and plays) like he wants to be in Staind and a vocalist who wishes he was Billy Mackenzie. Every song is 8 minutes long, the final 4 of which is an extended playout of cymbal crashes and guitar fx... Bad...

Some of Editors new electronic material veers dangerously into Depeche Mode territory - Tom Smith's rich baritone a dead ringer for Dave Gahan. The Mode do that kind of thing better, although the Editors bass player probably surpasses Andy Fletcher in cheesy stage moves... The songs from the first LP still sound the best and this doesn't auger too well for the future, but for now Editors are still a great live proposition!

Editors