Live
< Levis OnesToWatch's Five Night Revue with FOALS nd METRONOMY
words by Kate Hutchinson
Levis OnesToWatch’s Five Night Revue – one of the better branded live bonanzas around – rolled into my-hair-is-blunter-than-yours Hoxton last week to set up camp at debauched boozer The Macbeth. A slew of Loud and Quiet’s favourite talent was on the bill, from Esser to Micachu, but we opted to see how Foals and Metronomy were dealing with their ever-rising stars, begging (literally) and elbowing our way into their intimate gigs. Foals
Hoxton Hall
23/09/08
Apathetic pogoing from the front oestrogen-filled row and a gaggle of trendsters hovering at the back: the atmosphere at Foals’ teeny tiny ‘secret’ show is not exactly thrilling. Then again, tonight’s being filmed for one of those late night music specials on t-e-l-e-v-i-s-i-o-n – previously unbeknownst to us – so it’s hardly fair to slate the Oxford quintet considering they could easily fire up Brixton Academy.
Still, floppy-fringed, Yannis’s trite stage antics confirm the worst. Foals persistently pick through intro ‘The French Open’, seamlessly blurt the Mockneyed “It’s ovah” vocals of signature tune ‘Cassius’, flutter into the dreamy, spangled epicness of ‘Heavy Water’ and relish in ‘Tron’’s blistering instrumental until something flips inside their frontman. Like a tantrum toddler he wades into the crowd, head down, and proceeds to bash into them, then pulls an ecstatic girl onstage to introduce ‘Electric Blues’ for him and they engage in a drumming duet as if some tribal sex ritual, whereby he climaxes by decimating and she slips back into the audience to giggle with her friends. Snaking around the mixing desk, Yannis clambers over myriad equipment, falls over onstage and attempts to throw a monitor into the crowd before stomping off in a fury.
And so, the Yannis Philippakis show grinds to a halt a mere six songs in, one bandmate slinging his axe over a light stand in a show of protest too (although what against, we’re not exactly sure). The days when snorting coke off a prostitute’s scrotum was rock’n’roll enough for guitar wielders seem distant. Nowadays kicking over drum kits you can’t really afford to trash certainly proves your rockstar weight.
We, like so many others, saw such promise in the Afro-inspired alt.pop Foals effervescently purveyed – but this unnecessary outburst leads us to wonder why their relationship with one of modern day rock’s most innovative – if also unpredictable – producers, David Sitek, really turned sour. Maybe Sitek realised way before all of us that this supposed geek chic royalty aren’t that talented after all.
Metronomy (supported by Tubelord)
The Macbeth
26/09/08
Hands up, I admit it: I had some serious gripes with Metronomy’s sophomore release, ‘Nights Out’. Selfishly, it wasn’t the direction I wanted them to skip along in – I longed for more grinding, loin tingling basslines and they offered me a krautish excursion into quirk-pop and falsetto wankery. That’s not something I can spill lager to dancefloor to, I thought.
There’s nothing like a bleary night out in Shoreditch to prove you otherwise. After post-hardcore styled, Biffy Clyro-meets-At The Drive In, soaring rock from Big Scary Monsters artists Tubelord, Joseph Mount and his trio turn heads with their hallmark white orbs glowing on their chests. Singles ‘My Heart Rate Rapid’ and ‘Heartbreaker’ wash effortlessly over the nostril-to-nostril crowd and firmly establish themselves as contenders for Goldsmiths’ freshers’ secret crush mixtapes. The former’s sparse Peter, Bjorn & John-alike drum roll intro, dappled melody and eventual twang-tastic riff is as contagious as it is disco ready, and the latter’s unruffled tone justly represents the irked friend whose mate constantly falls for organ-destroying women.
But, clearly, Devonshire sonic wizard Mount was thinking of me especially during their final track, as he, keyboardist Oscar Cash and bassist Gabriel Stebbing shrug off their minimalist synths to sludge, fizz and electro-tremolo their way through dissonant banger ‘You Could Easily Have Me’. Heck, they had so many bodies bobbing (hard when your Twenties bob weighs you down, you know) that we’ve plonked the noiseniks on our November issue’s cover. How’s that for nifty product placement, eh?
All photography by Kate Hutchinson
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