Image courtesy of Foals.
These days, the British Invasion is more of a British Suggestion. Every Bloc Party, Lily Allen and Muse, whose compositions temporarily perk American ears up, is quickly overtaken by a homegrown product with a more affable song structure —“holiday” means vacation to them, right?
But every so often, an English band comes along with an uncanny ability to subside our nationalist music preferences and capture America’s undivided audio attention. That band is the Radiohead. Yet for a jam-packed and literally bouncing Turner Hall crowd Sunday night, British post-punk outfit Foals (which peaked on U.S. charts at No. 86) proved its ocean-crossing efforts were worth listening to. And they put on an exceedingly impressive performance.
The band, whose signature guitar work has earned it more acclaim with each of its three full-length albums, followed Fleetwood Mac-laden set of opener Blondfire and, fittingly, a tubular performance by contrived surf rockers, Surfer Blood. Foals played an epic Holy Fire intro “Prelude” and a heft of songs from its new album, released in February, which quickly had the sizable ballroom crowd shaking the ballroom floor.
After acquainting onlookers with its latest efforts, Foals wasted little time rewarding those in attendance for its 2011 Turner Hall outing with debut album Antidotes’ jewel “Olympic Airways,” before launching back into Holy Fire’s “My Number” and “Milk & Black Spiders,” among others.
As the UK quintet coated Turner Hall’s crumbling interior façade with arena-worthy indie rock renderings, Foals lulled the crowd into a mid-show trance with spacey Sigor Ros-meets-Coldplay stopgaps. Antidotes’ favorite “Red Socks Pugie” cut through the enraptured room with its “Oh hell no!” choral anthem, which prompted singer/guitarist Yannis Philippakis to bound off stage into the crowd to play out the song.
Later, Philippakis — whose energetic strumming single-handedly collapsed his microphone stand — toted out a floor tom and beat the bejesus out of it between verses of a surprisingly layered version of stripped down “Electric Bloom” to conclude its dozen-song jaunt. Following a short intermission, a patented oceanic loop signaled an encore, finding Foals playing “Providence” and uncharacteristic rocker “Inhaler” from Holy Fire and, finally, drawing once more to the Antidotes well with an extended and ever-building “Two Steps, Twice” that brimmed to boil with Philippakis leaping into the crowd again (guitar in hand) and the frenzied audience hoisting the 5’5” Englishman skyward until song’s end.
Though not as immediately palatable as many of its European counterparts or as accessible as lesser indie rock outfits stationed stateside, Foals’ intricate and unique sounds in addition to its larger-than-life stage presence ensures this Oxford band will only bore its way further into Western consciousness (and into larger Pabst group venues), one catchy, math rock-influenced Brit-pop song at a time.
