The Futureheads, Middlesbrough Empire

The Futureheads

May 1, 2010

Defiant as ever, Sunderland’s The Futureheads can now afford to pick and choose from four albums of cathartic, high octane punk-pop masterpieces and still leave their fans lamenting the omission of certain tracks. And now, at the closest to a hometown gig they will come to on this tour, they are unstoppable. The old adage that the spectator doesn’t want it to end has rarely been truer.

Opening with ‘The Chaos’, which is also the curtain raiser from the new album of the same name, they boldly run through the majority of their singles and showcase a smattering of essential album tracks – most notably ‘Man Ray’, which is devastating on record in the first instance, but absolutely venue-shaking live.

The new tracks stand up amongst their career highpoints and, although proceedings are terrace-friendly, they are shot through with the same spirit of melancholy that has always set them apart from their peers. ‘Skip To The End’ is pure, choking emotion laid bare to a Specials rhythm and displays the weight of raw honesty the band have always employed in comparison to some of the tongue-in-cheek, weightless irony-lovers who characterised the period of their ascent. ‘Heartbeat Song’ is as huge and spine-tingling as it’s recorded version would suggest, and is just one of a multitude of live offerings that eclipse their already heart-stopping studio versions. ‘Jupiter’, already described by the band as a ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ moment, hints at various new directions and the Kraftwerk-on-speed of ‘The Connector’ is simply breakneck fun. Even the electrifying ‘Decent Days and Nights’ is only on a par with the numerous masterworks it shares equal billing with.

With such a rich back catalogue of concise compositions, a setlist of twice the length wouldn’t have dragged. Now that they’ve released as many albums off their own back as they did with major label support, there is no reason to assume that The Futureheads can’t continue gracefully whilst exploring new territories. Divorced from the early 80s Franz-isms they were originally lumped in with, thriving outside of any particular record-selling scene, and too interesting to be marked down as meat-and-potatoes indie-rock, The Futureheads are maintaining commercial success on their own terms.

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