FFAF gets 4 out 5 wiggling toes!

photo by iskandar

I wasn't there for the gig but I've got a first-hand account of the chaos that went down at the Far East Square Pavillion on September 8th, thanks to Mr Fauzi, a huge Funeral For A Friend fan. It was madness and goosebumps he said......

Funeral For A Friend
Live in Singapore
Glass Pavilion – Far East Square
8:00PM, 8th September 2007

by Fauzi

I’d been looking forward to this gig ever since it was first made known on the band’s MySpace account 3-4 mths ago, but I almost didn’t. $$$$. Lack of funds.

But I did go eventually. And even if my wallet was $75 lighter, it was worth it.

Arrived at the Glass Pavilion at around 8pm. Missed out on the opening bands Caracal, A Vacant Affair and Astro Ninja. Heard they started performing since 5pm. Ah well, there’s always next time to watch those bands.

Daniel Ong and some other dude warmed things up with a contest,” Air Guitar Competition”, I think. 2 dudes were competing against each other, ripping it up on stage when the music played and doing their best “rocking with an air guitar” impersonations. In the end, the crowd pleaser won, by actually throwing himself into the crowd and bodysurfing for a while.

The crowd was getting impatient and chants of “Funeral, Funeral” were heard. FFAF probably heard the chants and came out on stage within minutes. FFAF were finally in Singapore!

They started off with Into Oblivion, their hit from the new album. The crowd went crazy and started moshing. They immediately went into All The Rage, from Hours, following that. It was rad and most in the crowd sang along. The whole set was a mix of the old and the new; however, the old songs got the fans singing along and moshing. If I remember correctly, they only played about 4-5 songs from Tales Don’t Tell Themselves and the rest were from their previous albums, which was a good thing in my opinion.

The crowd was lapping it up. I was singing along to all the songs I knew off Hours and Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation. Darran (vocalist) and Gareth (bassist) were orchestrating the crowd. Whatever they asked the crowd to do, the crowd followed like puppets. Midway through their set, they declared that the singing crowd was the loudest they’ve heard in all their gigs. I kinda doubt that statement as most bands would say that in all their gigs. But well, I give them the benefit of the doubt. The band as a whole were tight, their only booboo came during the intro of Bullet Theory, in which Ryan (drummer) came into the song too early in the intro. Darran and Gareth looked back at Ryan, looking puzzled, but they continued on, professionally. In fact, I don’t think many people noticed the booboo.

They were all over the stage, going from one end to the other. FFAF were playing all their well known hits among fans, for eg: History, Roses For The Dead, She Drove Me To Daytime Television. FFAF walked off the stage after playing The Sweetest Wave, another song off their new album. Of course, the crowd hadn’t got enough of them and kept on chanting ‘Funeral, Funeral’. And soon enough, the band went back onstage for an encore. They played Streetcar to rapturous applause and singing. I had the goosebumps the moment they started the song. They finally closed everything fittingly with one of their best-loved songs, Escape Artists Never Die. The crowd went nuts and you could feel their energy around you. Darran threw himself into the crowd towards the end of the song, which was great to see. That was it, one and a half hours of great music and showmanship. It was surreal. I still couldn’t believe I had just watched FFAF. I hadn’t expected them to come down to Singapore ever.

Towards the end of their set, Darran declared that they would definitely be coming back to Singapore; he promised. I’m definitely there when they come down again.

You have to be there too.

Rating:
4 / 5 wiggling toes