IDLES Alexandra Palace, London, December 7

ONLY a band who are confident about their place in the world would start and end their biggest gig to date with unreleased songs. Idles open their Alexandra Palace set with “War” and close it with “Danke”, two tracks from an album due later in 2020. In the middle comes another new one, “Grounds”, featuring distorted sax from new member Colin Webster adding an atonal layer of Stoogey noise to a song that rumbles: “Do you hear that thunder?/It’s the sound of strength in numbers.”

This celebration, there’s something magnificent and strange about hearing thousands of people singing along to songs that celebrate the NHS and immigration. Idles engage, partly because of the way frontman Joe Talbot presents the songs, combining politics with his lived experience and lacing them with a cathartic combination of wit, rage and hope. Political bands are often hectoring or depressing, but Idles connect politics with the reality of daily existence without ever giving in to pessimism. In ugly times, they’re a beacon. As guitarist Mark Bowen says after the show, “The world at the moment is full of anxiety, uncertainty and outright hate, and people need a space in which to vent.”