Live Review: Funeral For A Friend - Electric Brixton, London 05/03/2022
After a triumphant and crushingly-packed two shows at Slam Dunk, Welsh post-hardcore heroes Funeral For a Friend embarked on a career-spanning set of shows up and down the nation, supported by Static Dress and fellow countrymen Holding Absence. We were lucky enough to see them.
Bursting on stage with a crackle of distortion and the furious, fractured screams of Olli Appleyard, Static Dress made themselves known. The four piece, bedecked almost solely in scene-fitting black — except for the guitarist, hidden by a haunting, harlequin-esque guise, who accessorised with a blood red scarf — failed to live up to their ‘static’ name however as they sprang and raced across the expansive Electric Brixton stage. The flashing spotlights streaming past them acted almost as strobes, with Olli seeming to flit between corporeal and ethereal, while his vocals, assisted by bassist Connor Reilly, shattered the silence of the slowly growing crowd. Each song was a tense, uncomfortable (in only the best way) few minutes, punctuated by visceral shrieks and the pounding of drums, as the Leeds based band supported the hell out of the night.
Holding Absence were next up. The rising Welsh superstars, after a string of festival appearances, headline shows and highly placed support slots, are only going from strength to strength at the minute; explaining why pretty much the entire barrier seeming to have arrived especially for the soft-spoken rockstars. Lucas’s infectious smile seemed to light up the room as the four piece took the stage as some electronic tinged choir croons washed over the crowd, quickly replaced by sophomore album opener Celebration Song - what better way to start a live music set, particularly after the past two years, than to scream ‘I’m alive’ over some nicely pounding drums — before flying into Curse Me With Your Kiss and early hit Like A Shadow. The band had their little throng of diehard fans crying out every word, and the rest of the venue looked like they seriously regretted not learning the songs to scream along with themselves.
The beautiful thing about Holding Absence — never call them Holding — is that every song becomes a ballad as soon as the drums die down. Lucas’s voice, perfectly suited for both soft and gentle crooning and for passionate, screamed wails, make each song an emotional ballad; perfectly displayed by the band’s next song, 2020’s stand alone single Gravity, delicate and heart wrenching until it’s suddenly furious and loud. This track also sparked some of the fans at the barrier to hold up pre-planned little printouts to either support the band or, in one case, make them break focus — guitarist Scott Carey for instance, the most unassuming rock start you’ll ever meet, full on broke into laughter after catching sight of one of them. This, more than anything else, explains their popularity. You can tell, without a doubt, that they love it, that they love their fans.
After confessions that FFaF are personal heroes, and profuse, heartfelt thanks to everyone for being there - particularly with the show timings being changed and brought forward, meaning every band was on a good hour earlier than many would expect — the band had two songs left. The riotous Afterlife, featuring the first droplets of hopefully-beer thrown from the first moshpits of the night, and, finally, first album closer Wilt. Wilt always seems like an interesting choice to end on after the anthemic Afterlife, but then the first chorus kicks in and Lucas emotionally erupts. A fantastic, fan-favourite set.
Before Funeral For a Friend, the crowd looked a little... sparse. All the room in from of the stage was full, but not packed. There were little pockets of space, little gaps where people could slip in, and enough people standing up the stairs and around the sound desk who could have filtered down.
Thank god they didn’t because the moment Funeral For a Friend took the stage, flying straight into Hours’ opener All The Rage, the crowd starting to almost vehemently move. This was not just a group of gig goers who maybe hadn’t been to a gig since Covid; this was a group of gig goers who were either finally seeing a near-legendary band for the first time, or die-hard fans who’d been with them from the start and were reliving their roots. The energy was broiling and twisting all night, and the opening chords were like the spark to the flame, the catalyst to the chaos, the music to the mosh.
Flying quickly through fellow fan favourites Juneau, Rookie of the Year and Recovery, the punches — both musical and sometimes, in the case of the hectic pits, literal — kept coming. The viscerally vitriolic Bullet Theory came after some shots fired at a certain Russian megalomaniac — “Democracy always finds a way” — before the painfully poignant Streetcar raced through the venue. A song about being far from friends and family and feeling disconnected from them takes on a certain level of significance in a post-Covid world, and the passion from the thousands present was palpable.
Great Wide Open followed — a cheeky pun, perhaps, with everything starting to open — as a token non-Hours or Casually Dressed single, before personal favourite Monsters roared to life. This angsty anthem had Matthew Davies-Kreye completely drowned out at points as fans left everything on the drink and sweat-stained Brixton floor. The End of Nothing straight after seemed a little overkill, but that was nothing on what came next.
As The End of Nothing drew to a close, Matthew took the the mic. “It’s very important you guys pay attention here. We love the singing, love the pits. But there’s one thing we can’t abide.” This thing, of course, was “sloppy fucking timekeeping”.
“When this song starts, and you start singing, keep the fucker in time. Ryan [Richards, drums and screamed vocals] depends on it”.
Well, we had our marching orders, and the intensity of said singing from the fervent fans seemed to please the emo deities, for after that came a relative moment of peace as we all settled in for some nice nautical storytelling.
The “song about a wave and a storm and a boat”, as the band put it — more commonly known as All Hands On Deck — came as an anticipatory respite of sorts before the final few tracks of the night.
First, She Drove Me To Daytime Television - an ode to boredom. Then, the surprisingly emotional Escape Artists Never Die to ‘end’ the night.
Or at least, it would have normally. Instead, the band were forced to use their would-be off stage break to call out some problematic fans. As close to word-for-word as I could get, “People in the pit, I know you want to have a good fun, but please be mindful of people around you. We want an inclusive audience and an inclusive time, so everyone take care of each other and look after each other.”
This didn’t even begin to encompass some problematic behaviour that took place up in the balcony, called out through some quickly-travelling social media posts, but it was obvious that any notion of ‘uncomfortability’, for want of a gentler word, genuinely pained the six-strong behemoth on stage.
Then, without further ado, the final three.
The emotional Into Oblivion (Reunion), a beautiful track with a gentle opening tailor made for encores. The hard-hitting Roses For The Dead, dedicated in a heartfelt speech to the massive loss of life over the past few years and the many, many people who were no longer there to be a part of it.
Finally, the ballad-esque, often crowd-led runaway track History, complete with raised finger ‘salutes’.
A strong 18-song set from the fantastic Funeral For a Friend proved, once again, that it’s never just a phase.
Words by James O’Sullivan
Photography by Sam Strutt
