Super Furry Animals - Guildford Civic Centre - 29/10/99
5/5
By: Toby L
Set-List: 'Wherever I Lay My Phone', 'Bad Behaviour', 'Something 4 The Weekend', 'The Teacher', 'Do or Die', 'She's Got Spies', 'Chewing Chewing Gum', 'If You Don't Want Me To Destroy You', 'Turning Tide', 'Play it Cool', 'International Language of Screaming', 'Calimero', 'God! Show Me Magic', 'Some Things Come From Nothing', 'Fire in My Heart', 'Hometown Unicorn', 'Demons', 'Mountain People', 'Night Vision', 'Ice Hockey Hair', 'The Man Don't Give A F**k'.
It's more or less accurate to state that the Super Furries don't really bear much stage-presence. Of course they're formidable live, but thinking about all the SFA gigs you've been to, can you remember any time when one of the set's highlights was because Gruff said something amusing or because one of them jumped into the audience or something? No, you can't. But they're still a guaranteed live treat, due to the fact that they take each and every one of their (usually) twenty-two song strong sets and perform them to the most engulfing of their abilities. They make you cry during the sad ones, allow you to giggle during Gruff's constant screams, and force you to chant when it comes to their anthems, which they seem to effortlessly dispose of into the halls they play number after number.
However, on this tour, to make sure that it's their extravagant ever, rather than messing around with inflatable pandas for their stage-set, they're going to play around us. 'How,' you cry? Well, young lad, they've installed into each venue a quadraphonic sound system. 'What the f**k,' you bellow? Well, a four speaker system that allows surround sound, i.e. two speaker stacks at the front and two at the back. The SFA use a lot of bloody weird noises, you see, and this way of distributing their live music allows those sounds to enter your skull and manually grind it to a pulp at a quicker rate than listening to Napalm Death can. So there you go.
Roars a-plenty, the Welsh quintet walks on to the same sample that's been used in their shows for the past four years, and still, they don't think of changing it. But, mind you, they don't give a f**k now do they? Well, actually, they do. The quintet charge into 'Wherever I Lay My Phone' before we've noticed where frontman Gruff-Rhys is even located (he's on the floor, by the way, in order to let him mess his voice about with a vocoder). Already people are turning their heads around, just looking at the surround sound system, intrigued by such a different arrangement in comparison to the average gig. Before their opener ends, they're playing the faves: 'Bad Behaviour', 'Something 4 The Weekend', 'Do Or Die', 'The Teacher' and 'She's Got Spies'. They then shape-shift this chaotic, brasher sound for the mellow and harmonically touching 'Turning Tide' before easing into the always anthemic and beautiful 'If You Don't Want Me to Destroy You', its 'sha la la' climax being monumental. The mood doesn't last and the frantic pace is brought back (as reflected in the highly teenage mosh-pit) in 'Play It Cool' and other 'Radiator' material, though 'Calimero' is the most impressive, due to the leather trouser-tight drumming and guitar strikes on show.
Cian 'genius' Ciaran operates the synths and pianos during the soothing and stoned-like ambience of 'Some Things Come From Nothing', the intertwining, once humble-seeming lights starting to prove that they are genuinely incredible, as they twist and change colour before you notice it. The highly emotive nature of the show lingers with the incredibly subtle 'Demons', 'Mountain People' following suit. However, this is when it goes mental. The lights flash uncontrollably during the thrash ending of the aforementioned album-favourite and the sounds whizz around heads disturbingly quickly. I don't like this, I wanna go home. It doesn't stop there - that's just when it begins. A stomping drumbeat is introduced, samples are released and we are in rave territory. Holy squirrel. It then ends with people suitably gobsmacked, but majorly impressed. A quick rock-out of 'Night Vision' ensues and before you know it, during the big bassy bit, the weird lights and sounds flood back in and some people just have to leave, namely someone next to your reporter that had bleeding ears as well as bloodshot eyes (no joke). Pre-head explosions all round, a break is delivered in the form of 'Ice Hockey Hair'. Ahh, nice. NO IT'S NOT! 'The Man Don't Give a F**k' is here, the mosh pit has extended to the back of the room, the sounds are more fierce than ever, the band exit the stage to leave Cian to operate everything and return in costume dressed as aliens. It's mad, alright, but what follows is a further half an hour of club music, including reworked versions of 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. Well, it all ends suddenly and we're told to leave. 'Cor, blimey' is just not enough. But 'mind-blowingly brave and exciting' is getting there.
Artists in this article: Super Furry Animals
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