Foals / Astoria, London Village
Foals drive a coach and horses through Astoria, come into electric bloom
Words Phil Hebblethwaite / Image(s) Dave Ma
Massive gig for Foals: signature date on a tour they’ll remember as the one on which they truly snapped through and it was at the doomed Astoria, the biggest venue they’ve headlined. It means something to sell out the Astoria - the history is in place - but you measure the real appetite for a band playing there by whether you can even get into the downstairs bit. Last night, there was a scrum and tensions rose. In front of where I was - slowly being minced through the cage around sound desk - a fight broke out between a generic-looking lager boy and an equally generic-looking indie kid. People were appalled, but rather than being able to get out the way, we swayed gently with the movements of the tussle. It was oddly poetic and fun.
Girly Man
The ding-dong between Man Man and Girly Man took place sometime around song three and Foals had come out with rockets up their arses. They started with an instrumental before crunching into album opener ‘The French Open’, a two-man horn section joining them stage right. As many as 15 rows back began to bounce violently. Single ‘Cassius’ followed and it felt like the floor was going to cave in. Strange and over-intellectual asides between songs by frontman Yannis suggested they were nervous, but if there was a punter present that hadn’t seen them before, here was proof that under the blanket of coverage was something warm and worthwhile: a band with real ideas, force and searing ambition. “We’ve been looking forward to this show for a long time,” said Yannis at one point, acutely aware of its importance. They might have walked off stage 50 minutes later bothered by minor techy problems - you imagine they would - but the crowd spoke loudest: the gig was a real victory for these five spods from Oxford.
White Boy Jerk
About that: we can all name half a dozen or more bands for whom the dice rolled poorly, but British good taste still manages to cast the improbable into the big time. Foals’ swagger comes not from slickness and universality but very English bookishness and inelegance. The awkward way Yannis turns his mic inwards towards guitarist Jimmy Smith who, in turn, serenades him with the crankiest of white boy jerks, and indeed how the whole band pop around like they’ve done too much speed at a wedding in Wiltshire, marks them out as decidedly eccentric sensation. That’s our victory and while you wonder whether the rest of the world will buy it, we left the Astoria relieved.
Finally, if you want to search for a star in Foals, look behind the kit. Jack Bevan - by far the prettiest and already floating about with model Agyness Deyn on order of the House of Burberry - is an absolute powerhouse of a drummer, despite his flimsy frame. And for you lot who noticed the snapper with the unprecedented on-stage access, that’s Dave Ma, a Pigeon photographer who’s become something of Foals’ official lensman. Big up your bad self, Dave!
