The Situationists: ♥ ♥ ♥
The Grammatics: ♥ ♥ ♥
The Futureheads ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
After having at least a good year off from touring, The Futureheads headed to Sheffield union’s own Foundry this Saturday during their Uni-Live tour. And it was as if no time had passed, they were leaping and bounding all over the stage, waistcoated and incredibly sweaty.
Both of the support bands for tonight have previously played Fuzz club’s in the past, with The Situationists playing Fuzztival. The ex-shef uni students who describe themselves on their myspace as (http://www.myspace.com/situationists) Indie/Afro-beat/Disco house brought a lively performance to the Foundry stage. Their music is catchy, and there were some definite future singles in their set, Lost My Narrative being the most memorable.
Next up were Leeds based band The Grammatics, who stood out for the reason they had a female cello player, making them comparable to (dare I say it) Arcade Fire. The painfully thin lead singer’s haunting voice echoed through the Foundry, and almost everyone in the audience for a moment had a serene expression playing across their face. The four-piece’s most stand out track would have to be Dilemma, but no harm would have been done if they’d have rocked it up a notch for a couple of songs as all of them were more or less the same pace.
At about 9’oclock The Futureheads came onto the stage with great appreciation from the crowd, and at once I was hurled forward by the fans. Despite the gig being a 14+ there didn’t appear to be many youngsters in attendance, but mainly uni students, most of whom are male. There are a crowd of laddish types behind me who annoyingly jeer “Get off”, but then proceed to crowd surf. Lead singer Barry’s reaction to this is pretty funny, telling them off for “Ruining the gig for other people” in a strong Sunderland accent, and in general not acting very impressed. And Barry probably has a new ‘funniest moment’ for the tour (see interview) when a cup of water was thrown at him. “That was f***ing freezing” was his reaction, whilst Jaff got the audience to shout “Loser” at whoever the trouble maker was.
The four-piece were previewing material from their new album This is Not The World, with crowds reacting the most enthusiastic to the newly released tracks Broke up the Time and The Beginning of the Twist. I particularly enjoyed the interesting titled Girl With the Radio Heart, which sounded like it should be a definite new single for them, during which Barry got ladies in the audience to put their hands up if they did indeed have a radio heart. Unfortunately, only two of them did.
When it came to performing Futurehead classics Decent Days and Nights, the audience were literally in a frenzy and even the people at the back were dancing along. It is obvious gigging is where The Futureheads love lies. Barry had transformed from the perfect gentleman I had interviewed into a pouting, thrusting musical main man. However, it is good to see that success has not gone to their heads. They smiled, laughed and joked the whole way through, really looking as if they’re enjoying themselves particularly when it came to the Kate Bush cover Hounds of Love in which the whole quartet sing. The crowd were dubbed “The Sheffield Angels” by Barry for their attempts at singing along, and then they moved onto more of their new stuff.
From what I could hear it does seem as if the futuremen have been experimenting with their sound, even one song being described by Barry as a “punk-tango”, perhaps a result of recording their latest album in Spain. However, altogether it was hard to distinguish their new from their old, with all of them having a similar post-punk sound. The band has really mastered the art of performing live though, charismatic and with a powerful stage presence, not one person in The Foundry seemed as if they were not enjoying themselves. Plus, even though more than a day has passed my housemate and I still cannot stop humming Crash, a sign of a memorable gig.
By Alex Rucki
Check out Shefbase’s interview with frontman Barry Hyde here
