17th March is St.Patricks Day - the worldwide celebration of the patron saint of Ireland, celebrated by the Irish and (increasingly) non-Irish alike - what to do? In Ireland everybody has the day off work, In Chicago they dye the river green and In most parts of the world, everybody over-indulges in traditional Irish foodstuffs and drinks drinks drinks in commemoration. I however left my big leafy-green shamrock hat at home, and ventured to the soon-to-be-gone Astoria in Charing Cross Road to see Oxfords best export since some band called Radiohead - Foals.
Support for this evening came from Foals-pals Youthmovies and ex-Ladyfuzz man Ben Esser under his Esser guise. I regretfully only caught the end of Youthmovies set, however what I did see was impressive. Their debut LP Good Nature is out now on Drowned in Sound recordings - look out for a review later in the week. I did however catch all of the Esser set. I won't lie to you, I was a Ladyfuzz fan back in he day, and upon their split, I remember hearing that guitarist Ben was pursuing solo, however I never followed it up, so last night was in fact my first dose of Esser. And what started out as quite weak performance, ended in a string of delightfully brazen pop songs. Check him out here.
Yannis, Jimmy, Jack, Walter and Edwin (joined again by a small and quirky, yet highly unnecessary brass section) graced the stage of the Astoria at 9.15 on the dot, and launched into a fantastic beefed-up version of The French Open. They blasted through a 50 minute set comprising of fan favorites, such as Two-Steps Twice, Balloons and Hummer and lesser known, but equally as amazing tracks from their soon to be released album such as Olympic Airwaves and Red Socks Pugie (next single release fo' sure). However, the highlight of the night for me came in the form of Electric Bloom, the last track of the bands astonishing set (before a Mathletics encore). For the track, Yannis brought a floor-tom to the front of the stage, which he proceeded to bang throughout the track, the duel drumming produced an incredible sound, and alongside the rest of the bands jerky stage moves, proved quite the spectacle. At the end of the night, the band announced that this would be their last London date for quite some time, so for me, festival season couldn't come any quicker. Long live Foals.
Foals debut album Antidotes is out on Transgressive next week.
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