Gig review: The War on Drugs and Warpaint at the Piece Hall, Halifax

There’s an interesting juxtaposition of approaches on offer tonight at the grand surroundings of Halifax’s Piece Hall.

First on, Warpaint specialise in streamlined economy. To attempt an excessively simplistic summary, the Los Angeles-based quarter's two guitarist – singers (Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman) deal in angular atmospherics suggestive of a cross between the weightless textures of shoegaze and the jagged riffage of Sonic Youth.

The rhythm section of Jenny Lee Lindberg (bass) and drummer Stella Mozgawa, meanwhile, excel in effortlessly earthy funkiness, suggesting the alternative interpretations of funk by ESG or Can fed through an indie-dance filter.

Top off the ensuing hugely vibrant, dreamy yet bouncy mixture with a keen ear for a pop hook, and the results are an absolutely perfect accompaniment to a sunny evening at the grand surroundings of the Piece Hall, built in 1779 as a trading hub and now the home of a hugely popular series of summer concerts.

Warpaint's albums are unfailingly strong but tonight's stellar performance strongly suggests the band were specifically built for the dynamic interplay of live performance.

There's nothing knowingly low-key or scaled-back about The War on Drugs. The now seven-piece ensemble built around Philadelphia-born guitarist, singer and songwriter Adam Granduciel (formerly a member of Kurt Vile's The Violators) has been described as an amalgamation of highway-riding classic rock, folk-rooted singer-songwriters (there’s a noticeable hint of Bob Dylan in Granduciel’s voice) and kosmische atmospherics.

Seen in full flight tonight, the most accurate points of comparison would probably be the unashamedly epic 'big music' aspirations of The Waterboys (the band's Strange Boat is covered during the encores) and the muscular arena rock bluster of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, a comparison emphasised whenever keyboardist Jon Natchez switches to saxophone. Combined with a fondness for extended guitar acrobatics, it's a profoundly unfashionable aesthetic which has nevertheless turned the band into one of the more notable success stories of contemporary indie rock.

The sceptical-minded listener might find it hard to overlook how the ensemble’s arena-sized sound occasional edges towards the smooth slickness of, say, Dire Straits, and how the smooth sound of I Don’t Wanna Wait (off 2021’s I Don’t Live Here Anymore) could well be a homage to hairspray-clouded 80s AOR. However, only the stoniest of hearts could fail to be moved by the unfiltered heartache at the core of Granduciel's finest material.

When the arrangements get less crowded for a gorgeous glide through The Strangest Thing (off 2017’s A Deeper Understanding), the reason for the devoted attention of the capacity crowd becomes clear: The War On Drugs manage to bridge the seemingly insurmountable canyon between intimate and emotionally resonant songwriting and unapologetically grand musical gestures with effortless ease.

The epic workout around Under The Pressure (from 2014 breakthrough Lost In The Dream) that closes the main set is even more impressive by making good on the group's promise to mash up classic American radio rock with the motorik repetition of Neu! and Harmonia: the audience wound up hollering out the song's keyboard refrain during an extended instrumental extemporisation.