Super Furry Animals/ Irving Plaza/ April 24, 2002
After witnessing Super Furry Animals enthralling Bowery Ballroom show promoting ‘99s extraordinary Guerrilla, I had unusually high expectations for this sold-out Irving Plaza date three years hence. Utilizing video images and provocative graphics to enhance their sterling performance, this leftist psychedelic-folk quintet achieved nearly everything I’d hoped for.
After opening with an apprehensive take on the brilliant title track to their recent Rings Around The World, these intriguing Welshmen lathered on the dramatic tension. Stammering guitars and seductive harmonies graze “Sidewalk Surfer Girl” and poignant neo-orchestral anthem, “It’s Not The End Of The World” (complete with stimulating nuclear images). Then, we got comfortably numb with acoustic-based sedative “Run! Christian! Run!” and the sweeping cinematic urban futurism of the lush, disco-beaten “Juxtapozed With U.” Next, bright cartoon illustrations and Beach Boys-styled multi-harmonies illuminated the ELO-tweaked creamy pop of “Receptacle For The Respectable.”
Following a few riff-slashing guitar-driven bangers, SFA pissed on tyranny propaganda with the propulsive “Man Don’t Give A Fuck.” Offering a first-hand peak into their sociopolitical consciousness as simultaneous black and white film clips flashed early 20th century demagogues across the screen, its persistent “they don’t give a fuck about anybody else” mantra (courtesy of Steely Dan’s “Show Biz Kids”) drove home the point. They shrewdly closed this 90-minute set with a laser light spectacle consuming the loud percussive drones, noodly tape loops, and poli-sci rhetoric of gap-toothed action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger lip-synching “best mindfuck ever.”
But the band left the stage pre-maturely as a pre-recorded track of the Beatles hazy, psychedelia-induced LSD trip “Tomorrow Never Knows” created an ethereal whir. While I could never find fault with the bands’ monumental ambitions and compelling presentation, the tightly sequenced video allusions left no room for vocalist-guitarist Gruff Rhys to humor fans with his usual canon of witty quips and spontaneous interjections. And though they definitely played their hearts out, the ending seemed rather anti-climactic since everyone was waiting patiently for just one little encore that did not come to properly applaud the boys and truly show them how much we appreciated their incredible multi-media extravaganza.
