Foals, The Academy, Dublin

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By Niall Byrne on Monday, 21 April 200811 Comments | Print this post

Foals live @ The Academy. Photos by Liz Maybury

Attention Klaxons! Listen up Hadouken!, Does it Offend You Yeah?, Youthmovies, The Enemy, The Pigeon Detectives. This is how to put on a show.

Foals take the stage and hour and a half after we arrive, but the floor is already jammed with 19-22 year olds. Those patient enough cling to the newly installed barrier (I think we can blame MGMT for that one) and have to stand through a painful support act. The atmosphere is hyped with a intro tune and the band (diminutive singer and guitarist Yannis, energetic guitarist Jimmy, bass player Walter, drummer Bevan and keyboardist Edwin – who State talked to recently) launch into album-opener ‘The French Open’.

From there, the band never let up, hitting the audience with ‘Cassius’, ‘Balloons’ and a fast, more raucous version of ‘Olympic Airways’. In fact, all of the songs played tonight were distinctly louder and crunchier than their Antidotes versions and were all the better for it. The album is full of horns (courtesy of Antibalas) but live Foals compensate by blaring their math-rock riffs into the crowd with intensity and propensity.

Dispensing with the real slow songs on the album, they perform fan favourites and early singles ‘Hummer’ and ‘Mathletics’. The crowd go mental. It’s great. The encore features the math-rock doppelganger of ‘An Dearg Doom‘.

Foals made an appearance and TV series Skins and the atmosphere in The Academy was akin to a house party. State awaits their return with glee.

Myspace | Official Site

Video – ‘Cassius’

[youtube]http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=A3lWbPEOJp0[/youtube]

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11 Comments »

Pedro said:

1

Awesome-awesome-awesome gig.
It was like being at a fucking magic gaff party.

- 21 April 2008 at 1:58 pm

Colin said:

2

Great show. It was like being in an episode of Skins ast night. Trendy hair cuts/tight jeans/chequered hoodies all round. FOALS were brilliant though despite them looking rather wrecked from all the touring! Very impressed. Support was dire I thought and alot of it seemed to be runnig off laptops! Why bother? Great photos there!

- 21 April 2008 at 2:04 pm

caroline said:

3

fanfuckingtastic…heard a rumour they are coming back to play button factory in august!

ps: for the record im the wrong side of 25..and i dont watch skins…although my kid sister does and she says its lovely

- 21 April 2008 at 3:04 pm

Gav said:

4

They’re playin the picnic!
Had a great buzz at this – was a lot tighter and rockier than all the live videos i had seen previously,balloons was the highlight for me.

- 21 April 2008 at 3:28 pm

Niall (author) said:

5

They’re playin the picnic!

Oh yeh, I thought they were only on the rumoured list. Nice one!

- 21 April 2008 at 3:37 pm

Brian Chris said:

6

Great gig, blown away by how tight they were. And every so often it seemed like they pressed this ‘1 louder button’. But yeah, seriously great gig.
While the support was on Yannis talked to us, the support band are friends. Go figure, they were crap.
He’s very small too.

- 21 April 2008 at 5:40 pm

wheatln2 said:

7

I echo all of the above. Up near the front was like as if the UCD summer ball had spilled into the academy. But this actually worked really well as those dang kids are energetic as fuck, which seemed to push the band to play louder and faster.

Also I did enjoy this intro:

>>”This song is about the fall of Rome. (silence)

>>It’s called Cassius. (deafening chorus of screams and yelps)”

Pity the kids just don’t pay any attention in History class anymore… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Cassius_Longinus

- 21 April 2008 at 5:54 pm

Liz said: