Metro is the place to be on Saturday, for the return of Wales' Super Furry Animals. Click to find out why it's a must-see:
To me, Super Furry Animals are the most innovative, creative, and joy-inducing live acts out there today. And that’s taking into consideration the ground-breaking performances of The Flaming Lips (such as the Lips' tour when audience members were handed a walkman upon entrance, into which weird sounds were transmitted to you by a low-power radio transmitter while you watched the show).
The Super Furries, on the other hand, do it in a more intimate and personal way, though no less bizarre. Each quirkly move has a specific point to it, and they’ve perfected their aural/visual experience which has recently included the bandmembers doing encores in Chewbacca-like yeti costumes, or coming out wearing space helmets resembling the Power Rangers (through which frontman Gruff Rhys sang a couple of songs in an appropriately robot-like voice).
In the mid-90’s, as a new UK group trying to make their way in a scene dominated by heavyweights Blur and Oasis, they arrived at the massively sized (and massively influential) Glastonbury Festival in their own tank. The tank was painted blue and kitted out with a soundsystem, through which they blasted both their own music, and dance tunes for the festival-goers in the middle of the field.
Not as grandiose, but no less strange, are the occasional giant inflatable animals that pop up at shows, or the gigs when the band passed out celery to the crowd.
Animations and videos are a crucial element, and I hope that they continue their pre-show tradition of spinning records for the crowd from their dressing room. A small camera mounted near the turntables allows everyone to see what they're up to back there.
Don’t think that SFA shows consist of merely visual kitsch. They have a stellar catalog of 8 studio albums to pull from, and the new record ‘Hey Venus!’, was released on Jan. 23rd. Even though there’s still 11 months to go in ’08, it will likely go down as one of my favorites of the year.
At time of writing, some tickets are still available. The show is Saturday (Feb. 16th) at Metro. Tickets are $20, doors @ 8pm. One of the opening bands, Times New Viking, is pretty cool, too. See you there.
Cheers,
pogo
Yeti!
'Hey Venus!'
