image via josh

Neumos, we have covered this before, but why is your mix so bass heavy these last few months? Remember back when you were playing the Beatles low rider mix in between sets [mb]? Last night the bass swallowed all the other instruments for most of the night, so that sometimes from the sound of it everyone in Super Furry Animals was playing the bass, even the drummer. Huw Bunford is a really good guitar player, and I wish I could have heard more of him. Quit it, please?

We walked in last night only just too late to catch any of Holy Fuck!, which is a shame because they put on a show deserving of both expletive and punctuation. Instead, we got there just in time for an extended sound check, which always irks me–if you’re going to play 15 different guitars, tune them beforehand, band. Or tune as you go. Just quit making us stand there for 40 minutes while your roadies enjoy their time on the stage.

But Gruff Rhys knows just how to charm me, and when the band eventually took the stage he wandered on wearing an enormous Power Ranger/Speed Racer helmet, singing with the microphone up to the eye screen, and I gave in. The crowd dissolved into glee, jumping and pumping fists, and it seems like SFA’s request for set list suggestions worked out because everyone appeared to be getting what they wanted.

As a very small girl who spends shows near the front of the stage in order to be able to see what’s going on, I’m always a little bit wary of bands that draw a largely male superfan following, and most of the people packed in around us were definitely of the male superfan persuasion. In general, I can divide those crowds into two types. There are the kind that like to flail around and crowd surf when there’s no music, like at Wolf Parade, a show I left with a broken toe [mb]. (I won’t hesitate to elbow you in the kidneys if you elbow smash me on the top of the head while you’re jumping around, boys of Seattle.) And then there are the kind that you find at bands like the Mountain Goats, who seem to be more interested in jumping and fist pumping and who are mildly concerned when they catch a girl in the throat with their elbow. (Spending most of my life seeing bands has lead to a great fear of elbows, frankly.) SFA seems to draw the latter type, dudes who were genuinely thrilled to be there, singing along with gusto and bouncing happily.

Which is just a really long-winded way of saying thanks, SFA crowd, for being enthusiastic and dancey without also being total douchebags.

Anyway. Super Furry Animals have always managed the trick of staying relevant and sounding fresh without doing anything outstanding. “Hey Venus!”, their release last year, was maybe a little bit safer than their previous albums, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t strange and gimmicky and charming. And maybe that’s how they stick around so well, by making different albums each time but still sticking with what they do best. They’re always interesting, even after eight albums. And that’s why people love them so much.

Onstage, the band looked pleased at the waves of affection coming from the crowd, and Gruff chatted a little in his mouthful-of-marbles Welsh accent in between songs. As a dilettante SFA listener I definitely recognized songs off of “Hey Venus!” and “Phantom Power”, and I’m pretty sure everything was in English. The silly helmet was discarded and replaced with a bright green knitted elf hat, and the band played steadily and happily, and while they left a pile of kazoos untouched on an amplifier Gruff did munch on a carrot at the beginning of a medley, for reasons I can’t fathom.

Super Furry Animals make nice songs, but when they’re at their most impressive is when they stop singing and simply rock. At the end of their medley Gruff and Huw were playing at each other, eyes locked together, and for a few moments they created something spellbinding. It ended up in a guitar threesome with the bass player, and I can tell you sincerely that times like that are the reason I go to shows.

They ended the show by holding up signs thanking Seattle and advising us to go easy on the chowder, and then they filed off. The crowd demanded an encore but the band was having none of it. I guess they hadn’t made a sign about that. Eventually the lights came up and the roadies started unplugging things, and I left to look for a nightcap and a crowd of Lincolns, glad that I had ignored my impending cold for a night of plain old good music.