Toronto – The Futureheads were in town on Thursday night to promote their new album the Chaos, and they put on an awesome live show. After the FM light hearted pop of Athlete, and the moody (but spectacular) sounds of The Antlers and The National, nothing was more refreshing then when The Futureheads, upon taking the stage shortly after 8:45, asked the crowd “Are you ready to rock?”
The crowd was indeed ready to rock. So the band complied. What happened over the next 80 minutes was a show that moved along at a blistering pace that featured songs from all the Futurehead albums. It was a great rock show and the Futureheads have one of the best on-stage presence I have seen. Instead of going through it chronologically, I’ll just recall moments in the show that I found to be entertaining.
beer
First of all, the Futureheads were drinking Steamwhistle. Barry Hyde, the lead singer, when looking at the beer, asked ‘This is a good Canadian beer, yah?” to which the crowd yelled an emphatic yes. He then proceeded to open the beer bottle WITH A WATER BOTTLE. I was like ‘wtf?’. That was impressive. Later on in the night, someone bought the band Molson beer, to which the band was like ‘Molson?’ with a tone of displeasure.
fans
It was pretty apparent that the band just likes to have fun with the crowd. It was also clear that if you were in the front, the band was going to have some fun with you. At one point, Ross (the bassist) pointed to someone in the crowd during a conversation and said something like “I’m sure this perpetual screamer over here would like it”. Haha. Shortly afterwards, they talked to another audience in the crowd and told him he “had the straightest spine known to man” and that he had “good rock posture”. These kind of jokes happened throughout the night, and I’m pretty sure most fans had a smile on their face.
rock. and. roll
The Futureheads love to rock and roll. Barry Hyde used the guitar to machine gun the crowd and their post-rock punk meets 60s harmony sound was enough to start a mini mosh pit. The band even got the crowd to do what they called the ‘bouncey bounce’ for the tune Skip to the End, which consists of the people just bouncing straight up and down, to which Ross pointed to the guy with the straight spine and insisted it wasn’t a problem for him. Other songs that rocked the show included Man Ray, Area, Decent Days and Nights and Beginning of a Twist. New songs like I can Do That, Jupiter and Heartbeat Song got good reactions as well, in particular the Heartbeat song, which was introduced as a ‘John Hughes song where you fell in love fiver minutes ago’.
Hounds of Love
As I had previously eluded to, The Hounds of Love was a great moment in Oh, and it proved itself to be true on Thursday night, as the band split the concert hall into two sides for dueling Ohs to begin the Kate Bush cover. When Ross’s side won, he was so ecstatic for the victory he talked trash to Jaff for two straight minutes. The song itself to be a nice sing-a-long and even after the show was over, Ross was still thanking his side for picking up the victory. That’s some genuine fun.
Appreciation
When the Futureheads came back for an encore, they basically said ‘Alright, this has been a great gig, so from now on, we’ll just play requests from now on’. They then proceeded to play three requests before ending the night. What a great way to end a show.
All in all, a wonderful show full of energetic upbeat music and a great time was had by all. We also discovered pints at the Mod Club was cheaper then bottles.
The Futureheads – Heartbeat Song by Fuzzy Stereo