Live Report: The Church & The Afghan Whigs at The United Theater on Broadway (July 13, 2024)

By b.liebman on July 15, 2024

Last Saturday night at downtown Los Angeles' beautiful the United Theater on Broadway was one for true, deep music fans. I say this because bands like Los Angeles' 90's alternative heroes The Afghan Whigs and Australia's 80's post-punk legends The Church aren't the kind of bands that have casual fans. These aren't bands who had tons of radio hits and mainstream attention - they are bands that have built loyal followings over the years through the release of critically adored albums that spoke to their fans and latched onto them for years to come. Despite being of different eras and musical styles, the kinship between the two groups was clear in the adoring reaction from fans that evening.

The crowd at the venue was older for the most party, likely Gen X or older Millenials like myself. Entering the venue, I noticed some industry personalities like former-KROQ/current Sirius radio host Kat Corbett and radio promo veteran Karen Glauber. As driving to downtown Los Angeles and finding affordable parking around is one of my least favorite things in the city, my partner and I arrived a few minutes into the opener Ed Harcourt's set.

Considering the pedigree of both bands, Harcourt was a fitting choice for the tour. The British songwriter's sound has garnered comparisons to his musical heroes like Tom Waits, Jeff Buckley and Nick Cave, though watching his set as he moved between guitar, piano and solo crooning, he felt in a league of his own. His tongue-in-cheek banter and deep, resonating performance while on the keys inspired my partner to compare him to Elton John, though his "end of the world" ballads harkened back to the work of 50's crooners. While I was not overly familiar with his catalog, he held his own alone on stage (or with the ending violin accompaniment from The Afghan Whig's Rick Nelson), showing off an engaging stage presence bolstered by a unique songwriting voice.

I have been a longtime fan of all the work of Whig's frontman Greg Dulli. First discovering him thanks to placements in Rescue Me, I soon enmeshed myself in his solo work and band The Twilight Singers (who I have seen twice), before eventually going down The Afghan Whigs rabbit hole. His poetic and powerful songwriting, like Nirvana if Kurt Cobain listened to 60's soul and R&B instead of punk rock, always spoke to me, hitting chords with its melodies even when I couldn't quite decipher each song's lyrics. And with Dulli's penchant for transformative covers, any set by the band is bound to be filled with surprises.

I will say I don't know the Whigs' catalog as well as The Twilight Singers', but even my unfamiliarity with a track couldn't hamper how striking the music was. From Dulli's biting vocals, drummer Patrick Keeler's Keith Moon-style breakdowns, to lead guitarist Christopher Thorn's soul-searing solos, the band was musically on-point the entire night. Classic tracks by the band like "What Jail is Like" got the older fans in the audience on their feet, while newer tracks like 2014's "Algiers" (their biggest streaming hit) weaved its way past defenses with its creeping melody. Dark rockers like "Catch a Colt" blazed with intensity, while the band's cover of Martina Topley-Bird's "Too Tough to Die" was made their own with their fiery rendition.

At times the band was perhaps too loud for their own equipment, generating some piercing feedback, but such are the risks you take in rock and roll. One of the final highlights of the band's set was "Summer's Kiss", with its anthemic breakdowns, and Dulli shouting "Do you feel the breeze my love? Summer's kiss is over baby!" It's everything the Whigs do best, with its romantic heat and undeniable power that is endlessly cathartic.

There was a thirty minute break between The Afghan Whigs and The Church's set, allowing audience members to stretch their legs and grab drinks. When the band came onstage around 9:45pm, the atmosphere certainly changed. The fire of the Whigs was replaced by psychedelic lights and spacey energy more fitting for the 80's band's sound. While every Donnie Darko fan knows "Under the Milky Way", the group's biggest U.S. hit, I had only recently started to dive into the band's catalog to prep myself for the show, focusing on some of their other hits. Because of this, I was less familiar with the songs from the band's two recent new concept albums, 2024's Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars and 2023's The Hypnogogue.

Frontman Steven Kilby likely realized this was the case for most of the audience, and so began the show with 1985's "Myrrh" and their great 1990 track "Metropolis", with its chiming guitars and lovelorn lyrics ("There will never be another quite like you. I'm so in love with everything you do.") When introducing the newer material, Kilby gave some cheeky explanation of the album's futuristic, sci-fi narrative, following a struggling pop-star in 2054 using a device called "the hypnogogue" to regain his career despite it killing people (I think I got that right?). Either way, as he played that title track, followed by "C'est la vie" and "No Other You", it was easy to put aside the narrative and still let the band's signature songwriting create an enveloping atmosphere that put you into their world.

And it was easy to be won over by new tracks like the romantic ballad "Realm of Minor Angels" (My partner, who was less familiar with the band than I was, got her phone out to record that one) even while older tracks like the angular, haunting "Reptile" sent shivers down your spine. And while Kilby joked before playing it that he knew everyone was waiting for it, and that if people left afterwards he would hunt them down and beat them with his Twilight Singers box set, I can assure you the majority of the audience stayed all the way through and after the lovely, cosmic "Under the Milky Way", as the band then closed out the night with the harder-edged "Second Bridge".

So to all the more casual music fans who may be reading this and might not know one of the acts I discussed in this show review, let me assure you that you could only do right by yourself by diving into their catalogs. Here are some easy links for you to listen to Ed Harcourt, The Afghan Whigs and The Church.

Listen on Spotify