Fanfarlo @ Triple Rock Social Club

Last night Fanfarlo played at the Minneapolis Triple Rock Social Club. Up first was their opener, Freelance Whales, a group I knew nothing about except for that I had downloaded one of their songs previously simply because I liked the album art so much. The first thing I noticed about Freelance Whales was that they played a large array of instruments, including a harmonium, a waterphone, even turning the gardening cans that they had around the set to store the mallets for the glockenspiels into a kind of drum to bang on. As for their songs, they have an undeniable folkrock-anthem sing-along Arcade Fire vibe to them, many times incorporating merry vocal chants on simple sounds like "nah" or "ah" that are so energetic and possessing of child-like carefree fun that one can't help but think that they belong on the Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack. While I'm no filmmaker like Em, check out my video below of their performance of "Generator^2nd Floor."


Generator^2nd Floor [mp3] (iTunes)

Fanfarlo came on stage in awesome animal-print sweatshirts during sound set up. A man behind me commented, "they always have the best sweatshirts" so I hope that this is a common occurance. I wish I had taken photos of them now, but I was too enraptured at the time by the neon cat head sweatshirt worn by Cathy Lucas.

At any rate, once a brief sound check was finished, Simon Balthazar and Cathy took the stage sans sweatshirts and started things with a nice quiet acoustic version of "Drowning Men" with guitar and mandolin. The rest of the band piled on for the kick-it-into-gear number of "I'm A Pilot," and right away I was enraptured by the cohesive blend of this well crafted group. All six members are constantly doing something of their own on stage - whether it be fiddling with knobs on the synth, working a musical saw or in the midst of a subtle guitar-off in the corner. Being able to see the band live really opens your ear and allows you to pick up on just how masterful these songs are.

Simon's vocals have always reminded me of Beirut lead singer Zach Condon, and I live for the day when they might duet. Simon had spurts of energy, doing little jigs during the rocking interludes and making few jokes here and there, but it was clear that he was focused on the music, closing his eyes and keeping an extremely calm demeanor about him for most of the show. The set was rather short, with 10 songs in all, and like many others, I was surprised that some songs such as "Fire Escape" or "Sand and Ice" were not played, but perhaps the band wanted to keep it mostly based from their excellent debut Reservoir.

The concert was quite lovely with a fantastic and high quality set, but things were greatly boosted with a charming end to the evening. After the euphoric and propulsive performance of Luna (video below), the band handed out neon-colored tubes to random members in the audience and asked them to twirl them above their heads during the encore number "Ghosts." The tubes created an empyreal noise which seemed to unite everyone in that room together and made people leave smiling. All in all, like Em said when she saw them at CMJ, it was great show. Seeing Fanfarlo live is a must for any person who enjoys quality music played by talented musicians and likes to leave a show feeling full of satisfaction and warm fuzzies. I highly recommend you check out their myspace to see if they're coming to a town near you.

(note: songs starts :44 in, and sorry about the sound quality, I was standing quite close and my camera nearly peed on itself from so much awesomeness)


Luna [mp3] (iTunes)

More Photos:

Fanfarlo

Set List:
Drowning Men
I'm A Pilot
Finish Line
Harold T. Wilkins
Atlas (new song)
The Walls Are Coming Down
Waiting In The Winds (new song)
Comets
Luna
Encore: Ghosts