Super Furry Animals - London Royal Festival Hall - 1/10/04
5/5
By: Toby L
Set-List: SET-ONE, 'Improv # 1', 'Fire In My Heart', 'Improv #2', SET-TWO 'Demons', 'Cryndod Yn Dy Lais', 'Nythod Cacwn', 'Hometown Unicorn', 'Gwreiddiau Dwfn', 'Bleed Forever', 'The Turning Tide', 'Presidential Suite', 'Down A Different River', 'If You Don't Want Me To Destroy You', SET-THREE, 'Slow Life', '(Drawing) Rings Around The World', 'Golden Retriever', 'Do Or Die', 'God! Show Me Magic', 'Ice Hockey Hair', 'Hello Sunshine', 'Run! Christian! Run!', 'The Piccolo Snare', 'Juxtapozed With U', 'Hermann Loves Pauline', 'The International Language Of Screaming', 'Receptacle For The Respectable', 'Out Of Control', 'Calimero', 'The Man Don't Give A F**k'.
There's an inflatable bear located on the rooftop of the Queen Elizabeth Hall across London's South Bank. Elsewhere, ex drugs-smuggler-turned-cash-in-novelist Howard Marks is sitting in a small, painted wooden box entitled the 'Howard Marks Confessional Booth' amidst the Royal Festival Hall, seeming remarkably contemplative. The foyer, meanwhile, is brandishing onstage hi-jacks throughout the evening, not least disruptive DJs and nonsense-pop Welsh wonders, Zabrinski. And, upstairs, laptop luminaries such as Bravecaptain are jerking out rhythms, textures and noises that unsettle and disrupt the digestive system in a setting more prone to a snooty cheese and wine shoulders-rubbing.
Yet it's all so disarmingly normal in the world of the Super Furry Animals, a band whose stoned sanity is as questionable as Blair's health (or future reign). Tonight they're celebrating the release of a following week's 'Singles' compilation which assembles and celebrates all twenty-one of the band's releases to date. In case you were wondering, it's f**king amazing: Technicolor© gallivants through any and all aural alleyways, delivered with a knowing, monged grin and timeless acumen.
Doubtless, peerless, SFA are a British institution. Their extravagance is only outweighed by their eccentricity - perhaps proven by tonight's uniquely styled 'Lightning Fryday' event: a self-curated event dedicated to themselves, taking in the sights, sounds and magnetism that has enlaced their ten schizophrenic years in subversive noise-engineering.
Indulgent as sin, the f**kers perform a whole twenty-nine songs across three sets during the course of the night, and we savour every precious, cautiously orchestrated second; whether the fumbling, regrettable acoustic introduction in the downstairs ballroom - 'Er, we're going to go away now,' Gruff-Rhys cringes following two improvised 'jams' and a poorly remembered 'Fire In My Heart' - or two ensuing, downbeat/hi-fi sets that are delivered in the main auditorium.
The former is the shiver-inducing one - where we get the likes of Furry faves such as an opening, angelic 'Demons', first ever 45 'Hometown Unicorn' and a strings-bolstered, sensational 'If You Don't Want Me To Destroy You', plus loads of brass-laden, Welsh-sung ones that we don't really understand (of the highlights, 'Y Gwynab Iau', translated as 'Liverface' - and a startling 'Gwreiddiau Dwfn'). Coupled with obscure album-tracks 'Down A Different River', and two shocking stand-outs - 'The Turning Tide' from 'Guerilla', and a sumptuous 'Presidential Suite' - and we've already had our money's worth.
But not in the onstage quintet's eyes. To them, this is just the teasing, rather petulant aperitif. What happens next is nothing short of a riot. Just look at the ageing ushers - there's fear in them eyes. We're not surprised.
Within seconds of the SFA gracing the stage for their balls-out electric-set, the front rows of the stalls have been stormed and everyone's standing and wobbling in unison at the foot of the stage. Photographers are pushed over, security joins the scrum, and all Gruff-Rhys and friends can do is plough us with sixteen more greats - inclusive of a whole stream of particularly riotous fare: a now-infamous, Power Rangers helmeted rendition of 'Slow Life', plus an arsenal of frantic punk-indie chuck-abouts - '(Drawing) Rings Around The World', 'Golden Retriever', 'Do Or Die', and 'God! Show Me Magic', all back-to-back. We're shattered.
Then they drop a true bout of genius - a massive, shout-along 'Ice Hockey Hair'. It's all too beautiful. The rest of the set continues the pace and the sense of shameless euphoria that's now abound; no-one is left sitting. And despite a gushing of considered, slower matter - 'Hello Sunshine', 'Run! Christian Run!', 'Juxtapozed With U' - it's when the likes of a terrifying 'Receptacle For The Respectable', rabid 'Calimero' and dizzying 'Hermann Loves Pauline' strike that the madness compels. Let alone the 20-minute close of 'The Man Don't Give A F**k', which almost ends in tears when keyboard-whiz Cian's samples conk out, only to reprise after an extended, slow intro. Aptly, the stage gets rushed by a whole paraphernalia of weirdoes in costumes, and stage-dives from the eager obsessives prompt a security rush, but to little avail - when the song finally fades, a chorus of boo's is extended to the interruptive forces in front.
And it's a fitting finale, an echo to the crazed radicalism that has lined the whole soiree. Earlier, Gruff made the pertinent point of the venue: 'We wanted to rename it The 'People's Festival Hall', but they wouldn't let us, because they'd get the sack.' Well, jobs withstanding or not, the five-piece can know in full confidence that - for one very special evening only - they had their request fully met. SFA: punk to the core.
Artists in this article: Super Furry Animals
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