Fleet Foxes gig @ hammersmith apollo
I was a bit worried turning up to this one as a friend had seen them at the same venue two days ago and had complained about the vocals being completed drowned out by the music. Anyone who knows the band knows that the vocals are pretty much what defines the band so I was desperately hoping they'd rectified the sound before the second gig.
On the brightside I think the problems had been largely rectified in that the vocals were audible and clear throughout. However there were still occasions where the intensity of the music did draw attention away from the vocals. I think this is just one of the pitfalls of bands with vocals as the centrepoint in that they often don't realise that's their main feature. In fact they probably like playing all their instruments mistakenly thinking that's what the audience are after. To be fair, I found the full band to be quite entertaining but there were still several occasions where I wished they'd let the vocals carry the music. This was mostly noticeable with songs from the previous album whereas it worked quite well in the new album, which tries to shift the focus slightly away from the vocals.
The band were entertaining and if it hadn't been for the fact I'd just seen Sufjan Stevens only recently I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. I'm starting to think that the Sufjans gig is going to have the gig equivalent of "the wire effect" whereby it's so damn better than everything else that it makes good shows look worse than they actually are. I need to go see a really crappy band to cleanse the pallet. Maybe I should enter for free "the wanted" tickets at the itune festival? Speaking of which the itunes festival has an incredibly strong line-up this year. It's just a shame that it has become popular to the point where you have as much chance of getting tickets as you do olympic tickets. At least you know which band you get to see and it's free of charge. I suspect it will start to cost next year though.
On the brightside I think the problems had been largely rectified in that the vocals were audible and clear throughout. However there were still occasions where the intensity of the music did draw attention away from the vocals. I think this is just one of the pitfalls of bands with vocals as the centrepoint in that they often don't realise that's their main feature. In fact they probably like playing all their instruments mistakenly thinking that's what the audience are after. To be fair, I found the full band to be quite entertaining but there were still several occasions where I wished they'd let the vocals carry the music. This was mostly noticeable with songs from the previous album whereas it worked quite well in the new album, which tries to shift the focus slightly away from the vocals.
The band were entertaining and if it hadn't been for the fact I'd just seen Sufjan Stevens only recently I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. I'm starting to think that the Sufjans gig is going to have the gig equivalent of "the wire effect" whereby it's so damn better than everything else that it makes good shows look worse than they actually are. I need to go see a really crappy band to cleanse the pallet. Maybe I should enter for free "the wanted" tickets at the itune festival? Speaking of which the itunes festival has an incredibly strong line-up this year. It's just a shame that it has become popular to the point where you have as much chance of getting tickets as you do olympic tickets. At least you know which band you get to see and it's free of charge. I suspect it will start to cost next year though.