Friendly Fires absolutely rocked the house down at Prince of Wales (Melbourne) last night. A packed house got to see the UK indie band perform for their first time in Australia.
Kicking things off with a blistering opener 'Lovesick', Friendly Fires got the crowd tapping their feet, swaying their arms and shaking their hips from the start. However, it was the brazilian-samba inspired tune 'Jump In the Pool' that really got the crowd's vocals warmed up. It also gave us an insight into how good the percussion/drum ensemble really are. Drummer Jack Savidge played one heck of a show thats for sure.
Next up was yet another stunning tune off their debut album, 'Skeleton Boy'. If you hadn't started to dance/move/sing/sweat by now, this song would've surely made you. It was at this point when lead singer Ed Macfarlane really let himself go with his seizure like dance moves. However, one thing I did notice was that there was a camera at the back of the stage filming the gig. Disappointingly, Ed decided to focus all of his attention towards the camera for most of the first half of the gig.
Just when you thought they might play one of their more sombre songs, Friendly Fires played yet another sublime track 'In The Hospital'. As the cowbell made yet another appearance and the doo-doo-doo-doo-doo's were coming out of every one of the sold out crowds' mouths, you could tell this was going to be one special night. Have we mentioned yet how much we adore the sounds of a cowbell. Well, to some, Friendly Fires may overuse the cowbell, but not to me. I think at one point I may have actually applauded the cowbell itself, it was that good throughout the set. Rounding out the first half of the high tempo gig was 'White Diamonds'.
After the blistering start, Friendly Fires decided to tone it down a notch and to be honest, i don't think it was the right move. If there was one pet hate about the gig besides the relationship Ed had with the camera in the first half, it was the order of the setlist. Nevertheless, the camera had switch off and Ed decided to interact a bit more with the crowd by now. Despite songs like 'Strobe' and 'Photobooth', calming the crowd down a bit, new song 'Kiss of Life' got the crowd's attention again and allowed us to see what's to come in the future. The track is certainly growing on me and feels a little bit more epic than anything they have done previously.
To lift the tempo back up to extreme again, Friendly Fires performed 'On Board' and got the crowd swinging their hips, opening their vocal chords and jumping up n down again. Mind you, lets be honest, I think it was probably because the cowbell had reemerged onto stage. Finishing their set was the mesmerising song 'Paris'. This drew the biggest cheer of the night. Thinking it was the final song of the night, the crowd really got behind this song and really made it probably the most special part of the night. The song sounds magical on the album and as good, if not better live.
The band re-appeared after a short break to finish the night with one of the less climactic tracks, 'Ex Lover'. Unfortunately, like I mentioned earlier, this was probably the wrong song to finish on ('Paris' would've been sweeter) because the crowd felt quite flat. However, it didn't really affect the overall performance of the night. Last night's gig was as entertaining, amazing and pleasurable as I've been too in a while. Definitely one of the highlight gigs of the year so far.
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