Almost out of nowhere seemingly, The Futureheads have come and kicked me in the ass. First, the guys have quietly put out one of the best CD's of the year in my opinion. Second, they played a great live show at Lee's Palace in Toronto a couple of days ago, to a smaller-than-expected though exhuberant crowd[yes, I agree with Tbone that I would have expected the Toronto Brit-music-loving fans to be all over this show, but then it was a Monday night mind you.] These guys were touring with Franz Ferdinand recently which was an interesting combination, like two sides of the same coin. I decided to pass on the Franz Ferdinand/The Futureheads show in Toronto recently to go see The Organ/controller.controller/Pony Da Look show instead, and in any case I had already caught Franz Ferdinand live earlier in the year. The four gentlemen came on to the stage at Lee's Palace with a wardrobe that was stylistically similar to the Franz Ferdinand boys, yet a tad more relaxed. Eschewing the dance-rock rhythms of Franz Ferdinand for the most part, The Futureheads, in my opinion, have more of the working-class pop/mod-punk sounds of say The Jam and angry-young-man Elvis Costello. Shit, on certain songs, one of The Futureheads' singers[the shorter one] was vocally a dead ringer for Paul Weller. The band proceeded to play pretty much every song off their debut CD from what I remember. In the live setting, the songs were downright frenetic compared to the album, especially the exhilirating guitar playing between the two co-lead vocalists. There was an amazing interplay between the co-lead vocalists as urgent vocal parts flowed between the two of them in a sort of call and response routine. The guys fared well on such songs like "Robot", "Decent Days and Nights", "Meantime", and "Carnival Kids", maintaining a level of tunefulness but also keeping the instrumentation tough and muscular. Ok, the boys can be slightly fey a la Franz Ferdinand, say on tracks like "Le Garage", which opened up their set. In midset, the band pulled out a cover of a Television Personalities song called "Dorian Gray". There wasn't much banter with the audience, other than the prerequisite 'thank you's', which made their set fly by in no time. By my estimate, the guys played a stellar set that was just under an hour, although at the end of the set it felt like they were just getting warmed up. Of course, as the guys said, they're a young band and they only have one album, so I can't blame 'em for not playing more songs, let alone playing only a one-song encore. Immensely enjoyable show that I'm grateful to have witnessed within the small confines of Lee's Palace. You best check 'em out during their current club tour while you can. If these guys achieve Franz Ferdinand-level popularity[which I feel and hope they can] don't say I didn't warn you. ...shout-out to Mishie who was at the show as well and who I met in person for the first time. "Glad to meet you!" :)
[check out my photos from the show]
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