Car Seat Headrest, Naked Giants: Invisible Wind Factory, Liverpool

On a rowdy night at the Invisible Wind Factory, Getintothis’ David Hall thumbed a ride off of Car Seat Headrest.

Having taken in just about as much royal wedding fever as they could, a few hundred people packed into Liverpool’s Invisible Wind Factory for a near sellout Car Seat Headrest show.

Will Toledo’s DIY indie-rock project turned out to be a bigger draw than we had imagined, and inspired the kind of adoration you generally only see reserved for far bigger names in town.

First however, support act Naked Giants laid into a noisy and chaotic set of feedback soaked, youthful punk. Exuberant, with chunky, feelgood chord changes and songs full of ideas and thrashy solos, they went down a treat.

Three piece Naked Giants told the crowd the Invisible Wind Factory was “the most well lit venue we ever played in” as the evening sunset streamed in through the windows. By the time the main act took to the stage, it had dipped below the horizon, and night was settling in as Car Seat Headrest’s set began.

With all three members of Naked Giants returning to fill places in Will Toledo’s band, the six-piece flew into a cover of Talking Heads’ Crosseyed and Painless. It eased the assembled crowd into what quickly became an energetic show, as Car Seat Headrest took off into Bodys next.

Bodies in the moshpit slammed together and pogoed as one, and continued to on the follow-up, Fill In The Blank. (Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem) and particularly Cute Thing also received the audience’s danced blessing.

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The gig really hit a high point in Destroyed By Hippie Powers; a pair of crowd surfers were passed up onto the stage, issued cowbells, and encouraged to join in for the song’s blistering outro. The audience went suitably wild, as Toledo didn’t seem to know where to look.

Toledo is an intriguing live presence, and it’s easy to see why he inspires such devotion. The band started with a Talking Heads cover, and his wiry figure is somehow reminiscent of David Byrne. His songs are wrought and confessional, and he’s coated in psychic armour onstage, his fringe hiding his face, his gaze on the floor or the rafters.

The crowd’s attention did wander in the slower jams like Maud Gone and an extended cover of Jimmy Webb’s Do What You Gotta Do. But they came back for the encore with abandon as the band first dispatched Sober To Death and then a wild rendition of Beach Life-In-Death to end.

Maybe the dancing got a bit macho down the front of the stage at times. But the songs of pain, heartache and acceptance rained down by Car Seat Headrest were the perfect soundtrack to a summer evening as the day’s heat dissipated gradually from the earth.

Photos by Getintothis’ Tomas Adam

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