Show Review: Friendly Fires @ La Zona Rosa

Rocktober continues!

La Zona Rosa Rosa plays host to a two night stand for ATH with Friendly Fires and The Rapture. Friendly Fires is up first bringing along Theophilus London as the opener. Having seen a condensed SxSW set of Friendly Fires and the early ACL set from Theophilus London, I had some expectations as to what we would get. So click through to see how things measured up and for a ton of pics.

Theophilus may just as well move here. He has made his way to Austin I count four times this year. The crowd may have London fatigue as they were late to arrive. It was kind of empty up through the first half of his set, but as the crowd filed in, the energy went up and the show finally felt like it got under way about four or five songs in. Set was similar to ACL so I won’t go into too much detail other than it exactly what I expected, sequined tank and all…

Friendly Fires came up to the stage in darkness and then cut loose. Front man, Ed McFarlane did his thing, which is dance like a man possessed, loving the music being laid down by his mates behind him. By the end of the second song, he was sweating like a boxer and had been into, through the middle and back out of crowd in a counter-clockwise arc. Apparently, he has been overdoing it a bit as the Phoenix show a few nights later was cancelled.

The set was well-balanced with the Self-Titled and Pala releases jumbled. Musically, they sounded better than I can ever remember. Opening with “Lovesick”, they never really let go of the crowd. Highs included “Skeleton Boy”, Blue Cassette” and the regular set closer, “Paris”. Encore started a little flat with “Hawaiian Air” (never understood this choice of single), but finished strong with “Kiss of Life”.

More pics available over at the photo site…