From a cult hit to a self-produced new album, the Futureheads are a British Four Piece with something to prove and the talent to do it, as Joshua Sandford discovers.
@ The Gaelic Theatre, October 3
Aside from the fact that they are young, odd and extremely British, the Futureheads had no trouble filling the Gaelic last Friday night. Sharing the stage with the likes of Bridgemary Kiss and not so special guests Dash & Will, the Futureheads decided that an Aussie tour would go nicely with their last album. This most recent addition to their repertoire, titled News and Tributes, is a ‘go it alone’ album debut since their split from the 679 label. This time they may have got the formula just right.
Despite being spring, it was the hottest night Sydney had felt since the dead of summer last year. Futureheads fans abandoned the sweltering streets to take solace in the nearby Strawberry Hills Hotel. After a five-dollar steak, four beers and three pints of sweat loss, we were ready to take on our grungy miss mash of Irish and British culture.
The venue was aptly titled ‘Gaelic’, which is the love child of an Irish pub and Candy’s apartment in Kings Cross. A fully stocked bar lined the wall of the establishment, and poorly placed support pillars break up the view of the stage. The venue’s potential was wasted on an inaccessible upstairs area, which was closed due to an infestation, or poor ticket sales. Embracing the drunken tradition of the venues founding fathers I headed to the bar to attempt to replenish the fluids I was loosing. Unfortunately nothing was working because the place was being cooled by handful a of poxy fans, as if they had hired the same design company as the Oxford Art Factory. I was sorely regretting my early entrance.
Nestled against a pole and fighting dehydration the stage was eventually filled by a paradoxical Australian band from the northern beaches, with a British Indie sound. They were Bridgemary Kiss. All seven of the audience members were thoroughly impressed with their hand clapping, jovial performance. It would seem that the Futureheads were looking to break their façade of a young band attempting to make themselves look older by raiding the local high schools for one of the few stage worthy bands younger then them. Sadly the sound was leveled for a packed house, where human bodies would act to absorb the sound distortion. Instead it left all seven of us blown away in a deafening abyss.
The warm air and cool alcohol were taking their toll, and I was beginning to drift off before the next band took the stage. This next act were the “special guests” Dash & Will. Maintaining the indie theme, this band consisted of a pair of guitar wielding girls reminiscent of the Veronicas, except one was taller. Despite the poor reception they ploughed through their set, increasing in momentum and energy as people actually started to arrive, filling the empty stage pit area. The music was a splash of light hearted, up beat, pop indie, from a pair of Melbournites joined at the hip from birth. Sadly the music felt like more of the same, and I was more interested when I ended up running into James Mathieson in the men’s urinal.
Dash & Will knocked off at 10 and I was allowed to relax as peace and quiet reigned, allowing me to prepare for the band I actually came to see. However my peace became tested as the break was drawn out to let the bar pump out as many beers as possible to all the newly arriving, intuitively punctual fans. Finally after travelling 23 hours on a tin box in the sky and a few sleepless nights of jet lag, the Futureheads walked onto the Surry Hills stage.
They got the formula right, they toned down the new album so that it wasn’t too much too quickly, and managed to save all the pent up energy for performing on stage. They came out like a pack of caffeine addicted monkeys during mating season. If only all bands had the youth, vitality and enthusiasm of these hounds of love. The magic thing was that they maintained their energy throughout the show, refusing to fade off like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers shows of late. Sporting the latest trendy British mod fashion, they set the mood whether the crowd was with them or not. It was a ballsey tactic but they managed to pull it off.
Despite doing most things right musically, their live show was still far from perfect. At the risk of sounding like my 82-year-old grandma I dare say the music was just too loud. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy being saturated by the music until your so submerged in it that it takes you to nirvana, but I am not a fan of bleeding from the ears. For the first thirty minutes, of which I still had my hearing, I was impressed. In their usual fashion they differentiated themselves from other poor live bands, by actually allowing their vocals to shine through the clutter. These freshly audible vocals were a sex rocket fuelled by a classic British accent, native to Sunderland, which would get them laid anywhere outside France.
As midnight drew closer the Futureheads were finally beginning to tire, and the crowd was exhausted just from watching them. I don’t know if it was a concoction of the dehydration, the heat, the alcohol or the music, but I was left one satisfied customer ready to have a love affair with my pillow. The music was dark, the performance was an energy induced roller coaster, and they showed maturity by not ripping off other artists. All in all I thought it was a top show and as long as you can handle a few days of tunnel ears afterwards, its defiantly worth a visit.
by Joshua Sandford
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