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Gig Review

Fanfarlo / Stricken City
London, ICA

Article written by Paul M - Jun 7, 2009

We arrive later than planned, delayed by 7.6% cider and a brief period spent behind nerds queueing for a comicbook creator’s autograph (er, we’d joined the wrong queue at the ICA main door, honest!). It’s a sweltering evening, too hot really to be crammed into a room with a couple of hundred other indie thrill seekers. There’s dry ice but air conditioning would be more appropriate and the leggy frontperson Rebekah of the support, Stricken City, probably only succeeds in making a few of the young lads down the front even hotter. They offer up a brooding 80s keyboard post punk fayre with a pop twist. The menacing basslines, guitar effects and rolling drums give it a very Banshees feel, reinforced by the airy vocals but though it’s all very acceptable it soon becomes a tad samey, lacking the intensity and pantpooping fear that a set by Ms Sioux could generate.

Fanfarlo

By now it’s so hot in the ICA that we’re all in danger of frying in our own juices. Fanfarlo’s Simon may be suffering too but it doesn’t stop his gorgeous voice from soaring like an eagle on our body heat radiated thermals. And with six of them on the stage (including local folkster Jeremy Warmsley), swapping instruments there’s no shortage of depth and variety to their melancholic soulful orchestral pop theme; a trumpet, keyboard and mandolin here, a glock, violin or fiddle strummed bass there. They treat us to their wonderful new album Resevoir and finish in amongst the audience with an unplugged cover of Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘In The Aeroplane Over The Sea’. A suitably euphoric ending to probably their largest headlining gig. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they’ll be playing still bigger places yet.

Links:
http://www.strickencity.com/
http://www.myspace.com/fanfarlo