Music
Super Furry Animals
O2 Academy, Glasgow
Lorraine Wilson
Five stars
Six years is a weird amount of time for a band to lie dormant. Too short to make any shows a comeback and too long to take advantage of momentum. However, like the best old pals, seeing the Super Furry Animals on stage feels like not a moment has passed. That's not quite true actually. There appears to be a new found enthusiasm for the songs that made them the most inventive British band of the 90s and noughties.
Arriving on stage in white "clean" suits, an expanded line-up is suitably stark against an ever-changing backdrop. With a dazzling light and laser show manage to merge 60s psychedelia and 90s techno, this 25-song set is a staggering assault on the senses that only The Flaming Lips can rival. There's even a three-piece horn section in there for goodness sake, adding texture to Demons and Northern Lites and serving Mariachi band punch.
From the Beach Boys loveliness of (Drawing) Rings Around The World, through to absolute favourites like Ice Hockey Hair, Hometown Unicorn, and Golden Retriever right through to The Man Don't Give A F*** with its Steely Dan sample and a selection from Welsh language album Mwng, it's a night that proves once and for all that melody and the avant garde are not mutually exclusive.
Of course the members have been active in SFA's absence, Gruff Rhys and Guto Pryce the most successful in their own projects, so they're all still in match condition. But even they couldn't have been prepared for an audience reaction that turned the Academy into the Hydro with the singalong volume on Fire In My Heart. Joyous stuff.
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