Events
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Super Furry Animals Live
@ The Paradise – Boston, MA 02/23/08
By Nadav Carmel
We’ll start with the end.
“Resist phony encores,” said the large piece of poster board Super Furry Animals’ leader Gruff Rhys held up after the band had finished playing. “The ende [sic] [heart] SFA,” said guitarist Huw Bunfords, putting them on par with the Strokes for integrity (Julian Casablancas: “We don’t do fuckin’ encores”). It’s worth noting that the other sides of the signs featured “Wales Killed Jimi Hendrix” and the logo of the band Boston. Picturing the band laboring over these on their tour bus on the way to the Paradise was extremely endearing. Even more endearing, though, is that the band chose not to sully their dignity by succumbing to that basest of rock clichés, and instead just played an extra-long set that featured songs from seven of their nine albums (leaving out their first two), including the Welsh-language “Calimero” and the closer, fan-favorite B-side “The Man Don’t Give A Fuck.”
The show held other surprises as well, offering renewed faith in a band whose last few albums have become increasingly more predictable. Which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with a band well into its career getting comfortable, just that it’s good to know they can still pull out their fair share of the unexpected, that live they’re no less fresh and exciting. About the only things we could say saw coming were “Receptacle for the Respectable” and “Juxtapozed With U,” SFA’s only songs to feature carrots (being chewed) and vocoder, respectively, both of which were set up on stage beforehand.
The band emerged to the opening electronic segment of “Slow Life” playing from a laptop, dressed in cartoony jumpsuits designed by their longtime cover artist Pete Fowler. Gruff also wore a huge Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers mask through which he sang all of the rest of the song. “Slow Life” is a Britpop-techno-folk-prog epic that even Johnny Marr adores; SFA could be described as a Britpop-techno-folk-prog band, but now we’re just being lazy. Although Gruff did change guitars between every song, even in the middle of some songs, he always seemed very gracious about thanking the guy who handed them to him. Which is as good an illustration as any of one of SFA’s best qualities, their ability to balance proggy self-indulgence with a sincere, from-the-Welsh-boonies aw-shucks-ness. Between all five members, they’ve got an average head of hair, but only because two of them are completely bald (brothers Cian Ciaran on keyboards and electronics, and drummer Dafydd Ieuan), and the rest have shaggy, hickish manes.
SFA’s last few tours saw them playing along to projections and relying more heavily on laptop backing tracks, which entailed more rigidity in both setlist and execution. But the lack of videos this time freed the boys to pick more from their prolific back-catalog, which is their main draw, rather than visual fireworks or a crazy live show (though they did rock). In fact, a number of the songs were voted on by fans at SFA’s website, including the night’s first power ballad, “Fire in My Heart,” while several between song computer screw-ups were actually blessings in disguise, bringing the band into more crowd interaction as keyboardist Cian fiddled with the computer. (“We’ve gotta check our email,” Gruff said). This resulted in a series of short “songs” all called “Earth,” wherein everyone in the room put their hands on their heads like antlers or antennae, and Gruff and Huw harmonized one word, “Earth,” until the computer cooperated. Looking around the room and seeing nothing but wiggling fingers was pretty great, and what the night otherwise lacked in spontaneity, it more than made up for in its lack of irony. We got into SFA as earnest and awkward college dudes, much like most of the crowd at the Paradise, before we became jaded hipsters like the rest of you.
Musically, there weren’t many other spontaneous moments, like on the way home the last time we saw them when we had to back down an I-95 on-ramp in reverse because of construction on the Zakim Bridge, but there were still plenty of pleasant surprises. While it would have been nice if the live songs really differed from their recorded versions, the six songs from the band’s newest album Hey Venus, and the best song from Love Kraft, “Zoom!,” were played much more loosely and energetically. Both of those albums were often over-produced to the point of muddiness, but live the songs were fantastically clear, with the guitar and vocal melodies cutting right to the top of the mix with Dafydd's distinctive drum fills ringing out nicely. Other highlights were “Keep the Cosmic Trigger Happy,” the best song of the night, and a notably awesome version of “Golden Retriever,” with bassist Guto Pryce on an acoustic bass guitar.
"The warriors from Ohio," as Gruff called them, peace punks Times New Viking opened, but it was admittedly a letdown. Inarguably the best new band in America, they were fast, scuzzy and exuberant, but it’s hard to vibe the crowd with the houselights on, the PA turned down and the room only half-filled. A few songs into their set they actually had to ask the Paradise to dim the lights, and without the volume, the band (who don’t have a bass) sounded spare and trebly. The aforementioned SFA audience may also not have been the ideal TNV audience, but whatevs. The band was still a lot of fun, introducing each song with, "This is a pop song!," as indeed they essentially were. "Pop song number two!," "I can't remember which number pop song this is!," etc. A live performance recorded earlier that day (and broadcast a few days later) for Boston College’s WZBC kicked the ass we knew they could, though.
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