Foals at SP20

Seeing Foals at the second day of Sub Pop’s 20th Anniversary concert reiterated the lessons I’d learned from the first time I saw them live.

1. Twitching is an interesting alternative to dancing.


2. Jack Bevan is a kick ass drummer.


3. Foals is seriously dysfunctional.

SP20 had an efficient setup with acts alternating between two stages. When one band finished, the next began immediately after, and I don’t think a single set started more than five minutes after it was scheduled. Good for the audience, not so good for the bands, though. Since the stages were side-by-side, sound checks couldn’t be performed, causing almost every act was plagued with volume level issues.



During Foals’ opening number, "The French Open," the song’s most dramatic breakdown was made rather undramatic by a soft lead guitar. I don’t think anyone in the audience noticed except for me, but it bothered lead singer Yannis Philippakis enough to ram his guitar through an amplifier.

While stagehands assessed the damage, the band broke into an instrumental jam, which just goes to show how effortlessly the band can put together mathy dance-punk. Philippakis joked somewhat begrudgingly about how they had bad luck in Seattle, and even though he was moody, the crowd was rather receptive to his between-song banter. Maybe it was his British accent.

A song or two later, Jack Bevan (unintentionally) broke his snare drum beyond repair, and halfway through the set, guitarist Jimmy Smith (unintentionally) puked all over the stage.

But despite all the technical and behavioral difficulties, the performance was one of SP20’s best. In 40 minutes, they played most of Antidotes, the highlight being a ferocious new version of "Heavy Water" with an extended instrumental middle-section.

I saw Foals about a month ago at Neumos in Seattle when Philippakis broke two guitars and another amp. It’s sad to think that these guys probably won’t be together long enough to make a second album.

The headlining act was Wolf Parade, who were only supposed to play for 40 minutes but, luckily, were able to push it to an hour and a half. Most of the material was off their new album, At Mount Zoomer, rather than crowd favorites. I was pleasantly surprised they played "Kissing the Beehive," the awesome eleven-minute-long closer of Zoomer.