White Lies/Friendly Fires At Lee’s Palace

April 1st, 2009

040109-white-lies

Two words. Friendly Fires. You know what else is two words? Dance Party. You know what else? They’re synonymous. To say that the Friendly Fires opened up Tuesday night’s festivities with a bang is like saying vampires have minimal fangs. A gross understatement to say the least. With aplomb and an itchy spirit, Friendly Fires danced and twitched their fits into our wits… Lead singer Ed Macfarlane was especially gracious in this regard. It was hard not to notice fellow attendees being at least somewhat struck by the lead singer’s ‘charismatic and care-free-centric’ flow of movement.

It was an impressive stroke of work to see that musically, the band was equal to its effervescence and showmanship. “Strobe” and “Skeleton” proved to be hill-topping highlights, while for the out-of-the-blue-this-song-is-bewitching award, “Paris” seemed to lobby the hardest. If you like your Indie-pop-tronic energetic, you will find Friendly Fires hard to resist. If that’s not enough for you, there was at least two if not three cowbells playing simultaneously at a certain part of the show. That’s cheap real estate, and Friendly Fires, I’m sold.

A very divergent property was on display later on in the evening, as the hallowed four Brits of White Lies brought menace-rock to the fore. The band wasted no time introducing themselves, as they tore through “Farewell to the Fairgrond”, epic stomper “To Lose My Life”, and “E.S.T.” to start the show. In thinking of ways to describe the ear-worminess of “To Lose My Life”, even the most verbose would have limited explanations. Attempting to coral the slick, it could be said “To Lose” is like an arresting amoeba, a meticulous machinist, and clearly a big, bad mo-funker of a song. It sustained the requirements live and was a definite highlight.

“A Place to Hide” was another standout, and to this listener, sounded like a cool fusion of an Editors tune with one of Muse. In fact, to say that White Lies borrow nicely from Editors, Muse, The Killers and some oldie-but-goodies Echo and The Bunnymen and Joy Division is either accurate or modest. They seem to pull it off fairly well. A little more braggadocio would serve the band better in terms of connecting with the audience, but for a band touring their debut as it becomes a bit of a smash in another country, one would be short-sighted for raising such qualms now.

Another highlight followed shortly, as “The Price of Love” was, at least a little bit surprisingly, the beast that bellowed loudest during the evening. Its lyrics grabbed a cinematic grip and the music gleamed with an Interpolish sense of entitlement. Saving probably the best for last, “Death” paraded with peasants and proved victorious in claiming dominion over the crowd. It’s the build up, it’s the ‘feeling when we lift off’, it’s the commitment of faith and the admittance that ‘fear’s got a hold of me…’

While the over-powering presence of the band in action may need to develop further, there is absolutely no denying that a band who comes up with two absolutely mammoth tracks – “Death”, “To Lose My Life” – deserves a heft of attention and a deposit in the old memory bank as a force to be considered now, and as we ‘grow old together (and die at the same time)’ That sentence was never in question and the verdict came quickly (that’s what she said).

Setlist:

Farewell to the Fairground
To Lose My Life
E.S.T.
From The Stars
A Place to Hide
Unfinished Business
Fifty On Our Foreheads
The Price of Love
Death

Paco Gampp

Tags: concert reviews, concerts, friendly fires, reviews, white lies