Foals have stated in interviews that they don’t really listen to guitar music (I have no doubt it will eventually become hip for bands not to listen to music at all), but they do happen to play guitar music exceedingly well. If not quite as accomplished as some of the brilliant dance-rock albums to have been released on the DFA label, the Oxford act’s debut album, Antidotes, was still a highly impressive collection of punk-funk.
One of the most surprising aspects of Foals’ live shows is the sheer energy and abandon they display; their frenzied antics are far closer to the chaotic atmosphere of an Arcade Fire concert than the laidback cool of an Interpol gig. Although singer Yannis Philippakis sings into a microphone that is faced sidewards, towards his guitarist, there is nothing remotely introverted about his performance.
He jumps up and down, careers around the stage and generally throws himself headfirst into proceedings, as do his bandmates (at one point the drummer actually scales the rigging at the side of the stage – although, impressively, his scarf remains intact for the duration of the gig).
This show is also an eye-opener on the musical front; like Klaxons, Foals are a far heavier group live than they are on record. At their best, they sound absolutely phenomenal, with thumping dance grooves pushed up against guitars played at pain-threshold volume. The crowd absolutely love it, and bounce around enthusiastically to tracks such as ‘Cassius’ and ‘Balloons’.
The show ends in suitably disorderly fashion, with Philippakis pounding away at a floor-tom during another relentless musical assault, before unceremoniously throwing aside the drumsticks and utilising an effects box to add a final layer of sonic derangement. Bland pop, dull mainstream rock and generic indie-schmindie are poison. But as the title of their album suggests, Foals have got the rhythmical remedy.