Not even the plastic chairs and social distancing could dampen the intensity, writes Rob Hakimian

A community centre on a quiet residential street in Margate may have been the last place you’d expect to see one of the country’s most touted bands rock up, but it was at the unsuspecting Cliftonville Hall that Squid brought their socially distanced ‘Fieldworks Tour’ to an end.

Given the difficulties live music has undergone during the last 18 months, we have to be thankful that it’s re-emerging anywhere – and the performance on the night proved that a fancy rig and facilities are not necessary for a powerhouse performance.

The night started with yemroT, aka Jimi Tormey of local heroes Gang, playing a solo set. Perched on a plastic backed chair with merely his guitar, from a visual standpoint he was closer to the kind of low-key performance you’d expect to see at a local community centre. Lyrically, however, Tormey brings a certain je ne sais quois; he may say that his songs are about relatable things like getting too drunk to find your way home – but his imagination takes them off on unexpected trajectories into full-on fantasy narratives, often with a fatalistic bend. With the audience all seated on the night in order to maintain social distancing – and hungry for live music after such a long break – he was treated to highly attentive ears that listened along with each word, laughing and applauding in appreciation.

A particular highlight came when he invited collaborator Sean B Goldring up, and his romantic voice – somewhere between Jeff Buckley and Anohni – brought the air in the room to a spellbinding standstill. Afterwards, Tormey admitted it wasn’t as much fun for him playing by himself – but for the audience it was a perfectly measured treat as a wind-down from a sun-drenched Saturday and a subtle warm up to what was to come.

As far as the fun that can be had when playing in a band goes, Squid showed that in spades on the night, operating as a five-tentacled, instrument-switching, wriggling and writhing animal throughout. Their ‘Fieldworks Tour’ was billed as a “tour of work-in-progress new music which presents a unique opportunity for fans to witness Squid’s creative process first-hand,” but with their debut album Bright Green Field barely a month old, they would’ve known that fans wanted to hear tracks from that too. Thus, they more or less operated in a ‘one for us, one for them’ fashion, alternating between the known and the unknown.

Whether or not the ‘work-in-progress’ songs were a bit scrappier at the start of the tour, I’m unsure, but by the time they reached Margate, right at the end of the tour, they were as tight and thrilling as any songs we’ve heard from the quintet before.

With less emphasis on singing-drummer Ollie Judge’s trademark yelp, and more on mind-boggling interplay of electronics with their tight and highly-practiced playing, they showed clear progression; elements of math rock and industrial working their way into the meticulous concoctions. Even without them knowing the songs, Squid had the audience on the edge of their seats, watching for the sudden changes, which the quintet detonated in perfect explosive unison. In these moments, despite the minimal lighting, they made Cliftonville Hall feel like an alien spaceship throwing on its thrusters for rapid ascent out of the atmosphere.

Plucking album highlights including Paddling, 2010, and G.S.K. to slot in between these moments of sonic exploration, Squid almost forced the audience out of their seats – though they remained agitatedly compliant and seated. However, after such a while without seeing a band properly in their pomp, it may have just been the prospect of five young men playing at full force that kept people down. When rollicking through these hits, they seemed to wield the sonic heft of an 18-wheeler, the audience the wide-eyed rodents caught in their headlights, frozen to the spot.

With the heedless skid of the closer, Pamphlets, drawn to its thrilling halt, the fivesome removed their instruments and made a quick escape. While some tried to cheer for an encore, there seemed to be a volume-induced daze among the majority, and when the bright village hall lights flicked on it felt like awakening from a beautifully intense dream. People seemed to be trying to recollect just what they had witnessed, stumbling out into the surreal quietness of the surrounding houses, unsure if it had really happened at all.

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