By Matthew Scutchfield
Sunday of finals week, I was attempting to get everything of my own done, in addition to helping friends record tracks, understand harmony, etc.—all with a cluster headache. Oh, and this show I got to review. Cage the Elephant playing at the Orpheum Theatre Sunday was exactly what I needed at the end of a really long, stressed-out weekend. The show was a spectacular production.
I always enjoy the opportunity to attend and review a show from artists like Cage the Elephant. They are a group I had heard about from friends, but not one I was actively following. After some quick listening, I determined it was music I could dig. Coming with hardly any knowledge of what was going to go down, I had no idea of the incredible show that was about to take place. I arrived just minutes after the doors opened to discover that the first opener was already playing. Wait, what? Cage the Elephant had two openers? That worried me a little given the low quality of some previous opening experiences, but with the first group of J. Roddy Walston & The Business already going, I figured it would go by quick. It did, but it was surprisingly enjoyable. J. Roddy Walston & The Business was a total surprise because the band unfortunately only made like half of the preview advertisements, so it wasn’t really known to many that there was an opener for the opener. Overall, they put on a really good show, but had the antics of a group who acted the show to compensate for poor musical talent. They had the talent and the chops and didn’t need the theatrics of it all to get the attention.
And then it happened. The next band, Foals, could have absolutely been the headliner. They were…so…incredible! The intro to their show however was the toughest part to get through. It was one of those acts that usually comes with a warning to those who are prone to seizures, as there were five strobe lights flashing crazily in a pitch black room with an incredibly intense drum beat going. Though I didn’t have a seizure, it was all just way too much. Once that near torture was over, the music that followed was absolute bliss. An attempt to describe their sound resulted in the following: a combination of Coldplay, Foster the People, Black Sabbath, and some techno beats. Sound like a mess? Impossible? Neither. Excellence. The vocals, instrumentation, and everything else was absolutely pro. The lead singer and guitarist of the group Yannis Philippakis really was active with the audience doing such things as the classic water bottle spraying and coming off stage and walking across one of the rows of seats! Foals’ set was greatly organized, flowed nicely and didn’t seem to be too long at all. I suppose their only flaw (jokingly) would be that they did such a great job that any band following would have to really deliver.
Cage the Elephant did just that with no problem at all. Interestingly enough, the two bands’ styles were different enough that Cage the Elephant didn’t continue sounding like their opener, which sometimes happens. Rather, they were entirely new with enough similarities to still make be compatible, but hard to compare. The first thing I noticed with the headliner was irony at it’s finest—they had the least gear of the night, and they were able to do the most. Sadly, I was only able to stay for the first five songs of their set due to massive time constraints, but what I heard was a solid foundation of a great set. Both Cage the Elephant and Foals played lots of crowd favorites, judging from all the expressions of familiarity and excitement the audience exhibited at the start of each tune. I couldn’t recommend people to check these two bands out more. They were so good.
