UK five-piece EDITORS are the fourth act to play HOSTESS CLUB WEEKENDER on Sunday. Compared to the relative sparsity of the crowd for previous act Wavves, the turnout for this band is astounding – no space even at the very back of the hall where the night before it had been possible to sit down. Forming in 2002 and releasing a total of three studio albums in that time (two of which have gone platinum), the band has enjoyed incredible popularity and praise for their hybrid U2/Joy Division-styled musical offerings. It’s been 6 years since Editors were last in Tokyo, playing at Summer Sonic back in 2007, and it seems their fan base has been starving for a live performance since then.
The band opens with new song “Sugar,” a track you’d be forgiven for thinking was Bono’s latest effort, the dirty intro bassline combined with reverb-laden lead guitar and vocalist Tom Smith’s resonating vocals ringing in true U2 echoes. The crowd is the most responsive they’ve been the entire festival, with the majority of the audience enthusiastically jumping for their more popular tracks. It’s difficult not to get caught up in the excitement of the fans, with charismatic frontman Tom Smith skulking about on stage and amazing lighting accompaniments amounting to a compelling visual experience. At one point, a crowd-goer shouts, “Get a haircut!” to which Tom responds “Get some manners, y’cheeky fuck!”
Editors are set to release their fourth studio album “The Weight of Your Love” on 1 July, 2013, making it a four-year gap since their last album “In This Light and on This Evening” (2009). During this time, the band has undergone a pretty serious lineup change, saying goodbye to long-time guitarist Chris Urbanowicz, and proceeding to write and record their next album without him. This has left fans and critics alike interested to hear how their sound would develop, and the response to the pre-released tracks has been mixed, with some saying the group has become more arena-friendly for the masses, however the success of the album as a whole remains to be seen.
They end their set with new track “Honesty,” making it an ambitious total of six tracks from their latest album, probably hoping to spark considerable interest and hype before its impending release in July. Editors are currently on a huge European tour from now until early December.