About 6 years ago I stood in line at La Zona Rosa in Austin, Texas with my older brother Trevor.
The line was all the way down the street a number of blocks. The venue was jam packed.
It was SXSW (South by Southwest, the biggest and best music festival in the world...ahem) and the band we were waiting to see was The Futureheads.
I was their biggest fan. Completely obsessed; an obsession which still lasts today. However, at the time, all they had was their self-titled debut album: The Futureheads. I also had a pretty good handful of B-sides and rarities.
That album changed my life. I couldn't get enough of their Sunderland, England fast-paced energetic 4-part harmonies and overlapped vocal layerings, their aggressive post-punk scratchy Gang of Four guitars and their powerful, driving drum beats. I listened to that album every day.
On this particular day, I waited in line with probably hundreds of others to see The Futureheads at this tiny little place (where I also saw a number of amazing shows, including Modest Mouse and others).
But it wouldn't happen...a person came up to the people right in front of me and my brother and....cut us off. The venue was too packed; we couldn't see the band. Me, my brother and the 60+ people behind us were devastated. All we got in compensation were some Futureheads stickers (one of which is on my current car's back windshield....I had enough so that all 3 cars I've owned have had a Futureheads sticker on them). But that didn't make up for the loss.
Instead, we went and saw Robert Plant. That was okay....it wasn't 1970, and it wasn't Led Zeppelin. In fact, even if it HAD been 1970 Led Zeppelin, it only would have barely made up for missing The Futureheads at that point in their career.
Their sophomore effort, News and Tributes, was polished, mature and more laid back than their previous. I have friends who like it the most. I love it to death...but it doesn't beat the first one.
Their next two are....eh. They chose a simpler route.
They still haven't come back to their early peak.
BUT
Last night, I saw them at The Bluebird here in Denver. There were less than 50 people at maximum in the tiny little venue the whole night...there was only a handful when the first band played. As I stood there and watched the opening band (some pop/punk piece, not great) with my friend Michael from Film School, two people walk past that I immediately recognized. It was Barry and Ross, the two guitarists/vocalists of the group. The drummer walked up as well. They stood right next to us and watched the band. I had to shake their hands, yelling over the music "I love your music very much". It was worth it.
Here they are:
The second band is something I have to mention. I hadn't heard of them...Young the Giant. Their album comes out in 2 weeks.
Phenomenal! They were really, really good! I haven't heard something at a show that I liked that much on first listen since Tacks the Boy Disaster opened for Midlake in 2007 at The Granada in Dallas.
BLOWN AWAY. They sounded like The Walkmen meets Fleet Foxes meets Grizzly Bear meets The Strokes early stuff. Really great combination of sounds...nothing very original, mind you, but a beautiful smörgåsbord of styles blended together to perfection. I got to meet those guys, too. And I did what pisses most musicians off (who have an ego, anyways) and said "So do you listen to The Walkmen? I could tell." Yes, he did, and yes, he loves them, and Grizzly Bear. I knew it. Still cool.
Okay so The Futureheads came on stage.
High energy from start to finish, as is to be expected.
They played a lot of songs from ALL FOUR OF THEIR ALBUMS! That was cool. I knew them all. But no one danced more, jumped higher or screamed louder than me when they played their second song of the night, my personal favourite Futureheads song: Meantime. I was ecstatic...I didn't expect that. Oftentimes when I see a band I love dearly they don't play my favourite song.
They played a handful of songs from their debut: Meantime, Decent Days and Nights, First Day (which was awesome live, with the speeding up etc.), Hounds of Love (they asked the audience to sing along, splitting the crown in half for the "AH- OH OH" portion and I jumped in before they pointed at us and sang along where the vocal part starts on the actual album...Barry looked at me and made a face, then said "Not yet!". That was funny) and ended with, to my utter surprise, the favourite of me and my high school friends, the closer on their debut, Man Ray. That was awesome live. I remember sitting in the backseat of my friend Grant's Honda with the windows rolled down and all our friends packed in the car, driving on the way to Sonic or Wendy's during the lunch hour and screaming at the top of our lungs along to the chorus "Touch yourself, touch yourself, touch each other Black and White!".
Who knows what that means, but it was incredible.
Wonderful, exciting memories are tied to this band.
I have many memories of driving down Texas highways in my jeep with the windows rolled down (or unzipped, rather) and The Futureheads blasting through my stereo, accompanied by me singing/screaming every word of the album along from start to finish. When I worked for KVII TV, I drove the News Units around Texas doing the very same thing. I love The Futureheads.
Torgo! even did an early song that was basically an homage to their sound...Naughty Android. I felt it was the best song on our first album.
So to wrap this up, meeting The Futureheads wasn't quite like my experience in meeting The Walkmen; that time, we were in Oklahoma City to see Grant and saw The Walkmen(a band that has really made me a lot of who I am today) at a tiny little auditorium that looked identical to the one in the high school in the Buddy Holly movie...in fact it looked identical to my middle school's auditorium in Pampa Texas. We stood right against the stage and were within touching distance to Hamilton, the lead singer.
It was unbelievable...the music was perfect. I have never been so absorbed by their music before. After the show, I bought a poster and Ike and I searched for their green room...we found them down some stairs and a hallway in a little room, sitting there at a table with a group of people. We had them all sign the poster, talked to them about mastering our album at The Lodge in New York City (which we eventually were unable to afford, but it was where they had their album mastered) and we told them about our Torgo!. Then we stood by the stage as they packed up their equipment and talked about everything from their guitar tone, our favourite songs by them (We've Been Had), and Myley Cyrus (thanks, Ike. We can always count on you to make the conversation a little stupider). Like The Futureheads last night, they were very, very kind in person. They totally carried a cool conversation with us. It was awesome.
Btw, we also ran into Grizzly Bear after the Beach House show that same weekend in Oklahoma. They were in the alley as we left the venue. Ed Drost was super nice...we told them how amazing Veckatamist is. Ike was wearing a Michael Jackson Thriller T-shirt that Ed Drost commented on. Hah. Again, thanks Ike.
As for The Futureheads, I didn't have to go creeping around to find them. They walked right up.
And the poster I bought was already signed. Hah!
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