Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Super Furry Animals w/ Times New Viking and Jeffrey Lewis @ Metro, 2/16/08

Super Furry Animals on Saturday night was a lot of fun. I'll defer to Kirstie's review of the show on RFC as she is much more of a Super Furry Superfan than I, who takes her Super Furry enjoyment more casually. Some notes and highlights from my end, however:

- I think I was expecting more costumes and debauchery, but I did highly enjoy the large helmet Gruff Rhys entered and exited the stage wearing, and how hilarious it looked when he put the microphone up to the helmet's eyes in order to sing. (See Kirstie's pics for the visual representation). Also highly enjoyable: having Gruff chew carrots into the microphone, the creatively designed Super Furry suits all the members sported, and the fact that the band not only did not do an encore, but made a point to showcase their distaste for encores with some quality signage at the end of the performance.
- I don't get Times New Viking. Can someone please explain their appeal to me? This Pitchfork review seems to indicate they aren't particularly good musicians or songwriters, but we should like them because they just seem to be having so much fun. I think I could have an 8.4 album in the making then, if that's the only prerequisite. I suppose they did seem to be having a good time on stage, but it sure didn't help me get over the fact that I couldn't hear any of the vocals beneath their "lo-fi aesthetic." I had tried listening to their album and couldn't get past my inability to actually hear any of the music beneath the fuzz (and I think there may be some under there). I'd hoped maybe that was just due to the recording quality, but seeing them live just proved that's the sound they are going for.
- I only caught the last song of opener Jeffrey Lewis, which was actually what he called a "music video" entailing him flipping through series of drawings illustrating the story he was singing a capella. The story was about how he used to dress like a hippie, and then one day he realized he'd slowly stopped dressing like a hippie and started dressing like something totally non-descript. Then he talked to his punk friend who had gone through the same transformation. And then they realized it really didn't matter how they dressed. Awwwwww. Actually, I sort of identified with it, as someone who was once described as "that girl who doesn't dress like her music."

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