Music / Reviews
Review: Foals, Anson Rooms
Indie rock giants Foals have grown from their geeky math rock origins into one the most exciting live acts on the UK music scene, with analogies of foals becoming stallions galloping abound. The Oxford quintet play a sold out show at the Anson Rooms, with a high energy set well mixed with material new and old.
Real Lies open, with North London accented spoken word over their electronic pop. On record they capture a smooth, yet nostalgic 90s dance sound, but live they underwhelm and fail to excite a crowd who know that better things are yet to come.
Foals take to the stage and ignite a set that is relentless in energy throughout. You’d forgive them for focusing on tracks from their fourth studio album What Went Down released earlier this year, but instead the boys expertly fire out songs both old and new in rapid succession. Hummer (of drug-fuelled party in Channel 4’s Skins fame), My Number and Mountain At My Gates are all equally met with delight from the crowd and only the first few echoey guitar notes of the beastly Inhaler are needed to spark venue-wide frenzied jumping.
Frontman Yannis Phillippakis courts a love affair with the audience: “Bristol on a Sunday is better than other places on a Saturday” he woos and the crowd returns with chants of “Yannis, Yannis, Yannis”. Bearded, bulky and roughly 17 hands tall, when Phillippakis sings on Providence “I’m an animal just like you” he tells the truth. Stalking the stage and making use of the Anson Room’s limited climbing apparatuses, he commands an animalistic presence that in no doubt is responsible for the band’s notoriety as a live act.
The encore sees new track What Went Down, a true behemoth with driving drums and heavy guitars, and the sound of a band ready to conquer the next rung on the venue ladder. However, finishing on the staccato sounding Two Steps, Twice from their first album brings Foals back to their roots of playing intimate and sweaty small shows. Either way, stadiums or Skins parties, Foals are a live force to be reckoned with.
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