Gig archives: Foals, The Gorilla, 4/3/19

We’re now 6 months or so into the pandemic and there are people out there who still turn their nose up at wearing a mask. 16 people caught the virus on a flight from Zante to Cardiff this week after failure to wear one, however, much to the dismay of teachers and teaching assistants, the Government still seem convinced that this is sufficient enough to send every child back to school, just like old times. I mean, there are still people dying, and cases are going up. It’s as if they’re using kids as the guinea pigs (shrugs shoulders).

Also this week, the eat out to help out scheme came to an end, so unfortunately for the small businesses, it’ll be business as usual in terms of getting little to no customers all day.

And *also* this week, after France and Germany confirmed that their furlough scheme would continue for the next 12 months at least, to ensure job retention, the UK’s started to wind down as people began to make their commute, not actually being certain that they’ll have a job come the end of September. You wouldn’t think we lived in the 6th richest country in the world, would you?

Enough of that anyway, today I’m digging into my deep gig archive (ah remember those days, where we could all cram into a room and watch a band play boss music and not have a care in the world for social distancing or masks).

It’s safe to say that I’ve attended some memorable gigs over the years. I’ve also been to some terrible ones and I always find that the bigger, and more vast the gig, the worse it is (see Courteeners at Old Trafford.) The intimate ones are by far and away the best. I’ve even been to an all-seated one with around 50 other people and that was ace. I’ll write about that one in the future.

The one I’m writing about today is still one that I can’t get my head around i.e. I can’t believe I was there, with such a small number of people.

It was in The Gorilla in Manchester, which was threatened with permanent closure last month but it’s thankfully survived, and the band I went to see were one of, if not my favourite band, Foals. Considering The Gorilla has a capacity of around 550 people, I knew before I went that it was gonna be up there with the best.

To put it into perspective in terms of size, the MEN Arena can hold up to 21,000 people at any one time, so for such a big band to be playing such a small venue was surreal. Managing to get tickets was right up there with getting Glastonbury tickets and Arctic Monkeys tickets in the presale. CV worthy?

It was a cold, dark Monday night in March and walking up Oxford Road you wouldn’t have thought in a million years that 2016 Reading & Leeds headliners, and potential Glastonbury headliners, Foals, would be within a mile of you, but they were, and there was a buzz in and around the venue.

The lucky ticket holders went in through the side door, as if we were VIPs at a special event (I suppose we were) and as this was my first time in The Gorilla I was expecting it to be small and intimate, but not this small and intimate. The floor area was smaller than your local pub.

If you’ve seen Foals you’ll know that Yannis likes mingling with the crowd, especially in their last song, and ultimately, he jumps off some sort of scaffold and crowd surfs his way back to stage after the drop in ‘Two Steps Twice’. I was scouring the area wondering what on earth he was gonna do tonight because everyone knew he’d find a way and something to jump off, the question was where.

The gig was just before the release of part 1 to their new album, ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost’, and they’d only just released ‘Exits’, so the prospect of being one of the first 500 people in the world to hear new material was exhilarating, as The Gorilla gig was the first of a few intimate gigs they’d planned with the new album in mind.

I remember I went to the toilet as it’s right next to the stage and spent most of the time in the queue looking at the setlist. Ones I hadn’t heard of were ‘In Degrees’, ‘White Onions’ and ‘Syrups’, so I was excited to find out what they were like, but if they were anything like the release of their singles ‘Sunday’ and ‘Exits’ then we were in for a treat.

They provided said ‘treat’ with aplomb.

It was a mixture of new and old, as they went right back to Antidotes and weaved their way from album to album all the way to their new, unreleased stuff. ‘In Degrees’ was my favourite of the new tracks they performed that night. The groovy bass line, the iconic high-pitched guitar riffs, and a slick drum fill all had the makings of an iconic track that’ll go down as one of their best.

‘White Onions’ was massive. Similar to ‘Two Steps Twice’ it has lengthy bouts of instrumental, as well as a long intro, which has the potential to cement its place in setlists long into the future.

‘Syrups’, much like its name suggests, was silky-smooth and cautiously built up to a groove across the room.

The 3 brand new songs that they performed that gave me so much positive energy and high hopes for the upcoming 2 part album they were planning on releasing soon after the gig and intimate tour. Turns out that the high hopes were right as both part 1 & part 2 were arguably the two best albums of the year.

Yannis, being Yannis, was interactive for the whole gig and somehow managed to find a way to weave his way through the tiny, yet jam-packed room during ‘Two Steps Twice’ and climb on to the bar and up some sort of scaffolding. Health and safety officers would’ve had a heart attack that night.

He bought a shot from the bar whilst he was there, necked it, climbed up the balcony with his guitar around his neck and continued playing the last tune. He didn’t jump this time though, because the distance from the balcony to the bar was merely a baby step, so there would’ve been no point.

As he made his way back to the stage after being mobbed by 80% of the crowd, it gradually got louder and tenser and what comes next, just like at any Foals gig, can only be described as carnage. You’ll understand if you ever get the opportunity to see them. (If you do, then do yourself a favour and don’t turn it down).

And just like that, the gig was over. One of the most memorable and intimate gigs I’ve been to in my life so far, and I’ll be hard pushed to attend another like it.

Another reason why the smaller venues are better than the larger ones is that the people who go are actual fans, who’ve paid their money to go and watch a band rather than stand there talking for an hour.

***I can’t stress enough how much I despise people who pay to go to a gig and talk all the way through it. If you’re one of those people then I ask, why on earth do you bother? Go to the pub where you can hear each other talking and let music fans enjoy live music.***

Also I'm usually not a fan of people who take hundreds of pictures and video 60% of the set but this is an exception, isn't it?

On that, vital and highly important last paragraph, I’ll end it there. I’m missing live music, the atmosphere and the buzz around a venue, the god awful echoing of lyrics back to the band on stage, the camaraderie with the people around you with the same musical interests as you, even the £6 pints of flat lager. I miss it, and, just like festivals, can’t see it coming back for a very long time.

But it will one day, and it’ll be one of the best live music sets I’ll possibly ever experience.