Foals on the Horizon

Quickly a laundry list of opiates and other drugs made their way from his lips as he asked if I liked to party. That would be the oddly endearing Yannis of Foals for you after their Rough Trade in-store in London back in December. And tonight I've ventured up to Seattle to take in their last of three US gigs at Chop Suey.

When I saw them live on my last day/evening in London I was caught in between whether to break it down and dance or stand there in awe of their intensity and musicianship. Luckily the night before, Simon White, Bloc Party's manager had shared a few tales about them culled from joint tour dates and also the fact that they kinda detest "Hummer" for its commercial viability at an aftershow. Therefore luckily I didn't expect it as I didn't receive it in the live setting.

The set was charged, but too many people were apparently too afraid to dance. What's up with that? You are going against nature by not dancing at a Foals gig! Like you literally have to fight your body in order to not to.

There were many cameras and many songs and lighting that trumped real gigs and totally took it out of the in-store atmosphere. Since Yannis had broken his foot/toe just a couple days earlier, he was semi-subdued in comparison to his usual onstage antics according to him, but what I saw was pretty full on energy.

Afterwards they had a signing during which I took in how prominent of a display the Chromatics were receiving up front! Whoo! Night Drive all the way! And who did I spy or rather who spied me? Rhys from Good Shoes!!

I looked up and our eyes met and he made his way over to me. How random! So of course I geeked out and squealed something along the lines, "Oh my god!!!! I haven't seen you forever!" Rhys reminded me of my vocal volume, by which time I'd already attracted the attention of a mother and daughter to him who were fans of Good Shoes. hahahaha. The last time we'd seen each other was in the hotel room of Be Your Own Pet in Glasgow January 2006. That night was entirely too much fun! Oh the memories! Oh the music! That was the first time I'd ever listened to Animal Collective.

He headed out for some beers shortly after and I stuck around to take some polaroids and candid photos of Foals after they'd sufficiently autographed everything being shoved their way.

Yannis came up to me and started chatting without any awareness I'd be taking pics of them in minutes. We talked about their sound during their set and he assured me it's typically much better even though I hadn't heard anything off. We talked about my photos, his foot and a little Observer Music Monthly. Yannis detailed an entire Andy Warhol and Basquiat based concept theme for the cover for them and Lightspeed Champion to be shot in two weeks. I asked how he already knew about it. Turns out he planned it. We now know how that actually turned out to look.

They are a very fun bunch! How much am I loving that I just wrote "fun bunch"? To collect them all for a photo proved to be a task as one would go missing in the store just as another was found. Yannis was particularly unlucky going to look for someone he'd put on the guest list in exchange for the promise of getting them high, hence our exchange up top. By the time I left, the attendee with the goods still hadn't been tracked down. I don't feel too much apprehension mentioning this as they're rather open to discussing their drug dalliances in the press.

In the mean time, Jimmy had "Rock Club" written across his knuckles.

I snapped a couple photos of it at which point Yannis appeared saying, "Look! I can do that too!," taking a sharpy and quickly scrawling a heart on his forearm for me to take a picture of.

We spent some minutes in front of one record set-up before moving to another, which spurred Yannis to remark if we were going to the other set-up (that was coincidentally shorter) in an effort to make him look taller and poking some fun at himself in the height category.

He definitely put himself in a position for attention the entire time - jumping off things and telling me to look and shoot while the rest of the band were happy to comb through records rather under the radar. Friendly, but not nearly as talkative or hyper.

It was really really fun. There were some matching hand formations:

and we ended the interaction with some polaroids. Jimmy, Edwin, Jack and Walter all posed for a brief moment before returning to other activities such as packing up while Yannis grabbed the instant image from my camera the second it started appearing and pulled it out. Running around Rough Trade East, he held it until it developed, then gave it back to me with the observation, "I look like a twat."

So what are we in store for in Seattle? The couplet of New York shows went down an absolute storm and maybe, just maybe there will be a house show. I didn't ask them because I have no space to offer and when I did in London, they mistook my questioning as an offer:

Party at a Sub Pop house?

Here's a song they're unlikely to play:

"Astronauts and All" Foals MP3

Judging by "Balloons," my mom pegs them as a mix between Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs.

Foals Myspazz

Oh, and keyboardist Edwin being named Edwin instead of Edward was inspiration enough to use his name in a story I wrote based on Worms' song "Dead in the Waves." It's a political "thriller" - go read it!

And in related/unrelated, a Basquiat mural was found in an apartment complex in NYC. For $8 million you can own a condo next to the creation, though it won't be there for long. Yearly maintenance fee for living in such luxury? Only $42,000.00 a year!

Comments

[meg]

you know i love those foals photos! so awesome!

[Marisa]

I hope you know how jealous/amazed I am that you get to hang out with all these people who guested on NMTB. So jealous.

[sophie]

simon white (bloc parties manager) simon (klaxons) BOVERED.