IST IST Live at The Met, Bury
On the 8th of January I headed to the Greater Manchester town, Bury to see Local legends IST IST. The post-punk band held a Q&A at Wax & Bean, where they sell their records, before their performance at The Met. The Q&A portion at Wax & Bean was hilarious and entertaining and their set at The Met was energetic and fun.
Wax and Beans is an independent record and coffee shop in Bury. They teamed up with IST IST to provide an individual edition of their newest album “Dagger” and host a Q&A session just days after the release.
The band answered questions about their name, album titles and past shows and records. They spoke about how their name was originally going to be DAS IST, talked to their fans from the Netherlands - joking about the difference between the crowds there and the UK and shared a tidbit about their album titles. They realised that since their first album ‘Protaganists’, every other album they have brought out has been only a one word title. They stated that this was entirely by accident but joked that they had to “keep up the trend.”
After the Q&A, there was an hour of so to go to the bar, get a drink and have a snack before heading across the road to The Met. The venue, as you walk in, is absolutely stunning. Grand interiors that are shocking, almost like a Tardis where it looks bigger on the inside. The concert hall almost looked church-like in its architecture. Everyone got some drinks at the bar in the foyer, perused the Records/Merch and stood in the hall waiting for the performance.
I noticed that IST IST have quite a large cult following. The fans that were there weren’t simply people that have seen their Facebook adverts and listen to their famous songs for instance - the people there knew all of their albums, had seen them at least once before or even travelled countries for their show. What I'm trying to say is, their fans are loyal and strong.
They performed the album from front to back, causing their audience to jump and dance to their hits like ‘I Am The Fear.’ Their musicality was fantastic, sounding almost exactly like the studio version with the only difference being flourishes for live performance sake. The band clearly have a sense of humour and enjoy performing with each other, often smirking at each other or making witty quips.
They announced that the performance at Bury, The Met was being filmed and recorded and would be available to watch soon. Read our review on their newest album here.