Jun 15 2009 10:55 pm,
Friendly Fires
London, Vinopolis
15/06/2009
The Fly leave tonight’s unique show feeling perplexed and visually impaired as if we’d just been released from a pleasant dungeon experience after being locked in a room for 50 minutes listening to Friendly Fires play in absolute darkness. The shimmering electronics, tropical beats and disco sensibilities of the band’s songs are put to the test tonight as they’re stripped of their colourful stage presence they’ve become notorious for: a frontman who engages his audience with his Mick Jagger-cum-epileptic fit styled dancing, explosive confetti eruptions and elaborate festival dancers. Tonight, Friendly Fires are left with just their songs and their 200 strong audience’s loyal attention. We’re lead to our plastic seats (we’re not allowed to go to the loo during their set which could explain the clinical seating conditions) and watch on as our minds play tricks with our eyes Most Haunted-style. Are people walking around? Is someone standing up in front of me? Are the band just on stage windmilling at us? Before our mind’s start to go totally Derek Acorah, the disco troubadours accompanied by a brass band, become suddenly semi-visible in the newly luminous UV lights, which show off our exalted whiter than white smiles. Performing their debut eponymous album, the song’s glittering, throbbing and euphoric compositions propel across the venue, before the band give into a little UV enabled magic and a cloak of blisteringly white confetti rains over the audience during the climax of ‘Paris’. It’s a true test of Friendly Fires' melodic magic, and they pass with ultraviolet colours.
Harriet Gibsone
