The Futureheads @ The Refectory
By Chris PhelanFour blokes in a band with a passion for making a clever arty punk racket grace the stage tonight in a triumphant manner. It's taken them a while, but at last The Futureheads are proper Leeds headliners - on the big stage with their names in massive pink letters overhead it somehow seems, right.
Unfortunately though for paying customers of Leeds the big stage is the Refectory (despite the ticket saying Leeds Met) a shithole of an excuse for a venue where all that seems to be the objective is to cram as many people in as possible rather than giving two fucks about anything else like the overwhelming heat that makes it unbearable to even stand in there sometimes, the even warmer beer and the fact that even if you want to get a bit of air you can't get back in. Oh and the sounds usually shit too. Rant? What Rant?
The Futureheads are no strangers to Leeds, their list of visits includes The Fenton, The Hi-Fi and this place three times supporting The Zutons and on the recent NME tour so it's well received when bassist/singer Jaff shares his knowledge of the city to the audience. It's Jaff and guitarist/singer Ross that do all the talking tonight, they're the ones with all the audience banter and it's brothers Lead singer/guitarist Barry and drummer Dave that are the quiet ones on stage not saying a word during the set but it's mainly the tunes that do the talking tonight the scraping three way guitars (Alms, He Knows) the charming three way harmonies (Le Garage, Danger of the water) and the catchy super pop riffs (Carnival kids, Decent days and nights).
Ross and Jaff's new party trick goes down well too splitting the crowd into two to sing each others vocal for recent single 'Hounds of Love' and that's the one that goes down a storm tonight with a deafening earthquake of "Whoah oh oh oh oh" all the way to the back. The new ones sound pretty good too with 'Area' being one of the highlights of the set and a thunderous stompy classic in the waiting.
The Futureheads were always going to be winners tonight after all at which gig can you see grown men shouting "ROBOT!" in each others faces in fake maccam accents and as the lads would probably say themselves 2005 is going to be "Champion!"
