Dandy Warhols silently rock Le Trianon

On the 29th of November I was standing in Le Trianon, a music venue in Paris, waiting for the arrival of The Dandy Warhols onto the stage. Whilst waiting I took a look around the old theatre in which I was standing, and it is truly one of the most beautiful venues that I have ever been in, with wooden carvings surrounding the stage and adorning the walls. Then the lights dimmed and they came out on stage immediately launching into ‘Be-In’ with its slowly building crescendo of pure Dandy Warhols essence setting the tone for the whole show. This wasn’t just a tour to promote their new album, it was a show for the fans.

The Dandy Warhols are an American group which have been around since the early 90s, probably being best described under that blanket term ‘alternative rock’. Whilst remaining in this general genre they’ve managed to change their sound almost continuously whilst still remaining identifiably as the good ol’ Dandy Warhols. They started with garage rock, touched on psychedelia, and have had a stint with power-pop during their ongoing evolution, which seems to be settling, at least for the moment, on a more stripped down, guitar driven rock.

With this constantly changing sound, The Dandy Warhols have generally polarised fans into groups which like a particular ‘version’ of The Dandy Warhols. It is almost without doubt that the track ‘Bohemian Like You’, through its use on a Vodafone advert, gained them recognition and was a huge part in their success during this period of the early noughties. I think that it was this song that I heard first and their infectious sound has meant that I have been snared since then. I’ve stayed a fan through their various transformations, as even when they swap to different genres there still remains something quintessentially Dandy Warhols-ish in all their albums, and it’s this that keeps drawing me back.

At the concert itself the band pandered to all of their different fans, playing a large selection of favourites from across their albums including, of course,‘Bohemian Like You’ with other well-known tracks like ‘Godless’ and ‘We Used To Be Friends’ also making an appearance. A fair few of the songs played were quite different renditions of their album counterparts, even with a melodica being brought out for a few. This added to their performance making it feel like a truly ‘live’ and special experience, not just a replay of the albums.

The band itself was one of the least talkative I’ve seen, possibly was because it was Paris, and instead just got down to playing their no-nonsense rock, with the atmosphere building throughout the night, with the old theatre’s dancefloor literally bouncing by the end. The concert was such a comprehensive compilation of the Dandy Warhols, making it a real pleasure to be part of the experience, and convincing me to seek them out whenever they’re on tour.