bands of 2013: foals
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haos runs riot when Foals play live. They didn’t exactly emerge sporting stony faces and feet rooted to the floor, but something’s transformed in the past few months. Their Glastonbury set came off like a crowning moment, where disorder on stage translated to the crowd like never before.
in the room. They knew how to work us.” Before, Foals were a group that’d pore over the tiny details. Not that this has done them any harm, except maybe to their own collective sanity. Today, they’re a big distance away from a group that Yannis renders “closedminded” and “neurotic.” “[Back then] I’d let the little Woody Allen in my brain run riot and try and micro-manage everything. Over time, I’ve learnt the advantages of having things unsaid and allowing chaos to enter the frame; to have the process guided by something that comes from the heart rather than the head.”
“We’re not content with something sounding alright.”
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thisisfakediy.co.uk
“When we play live now, I feel like we’re playing better than ever before,” says the frontman, all confidence. Live, a sense of instinct plays out. There’s no pre-formed plans, no structure, no “playing the same set every night.” If a Foals show gives into any kind of routine, it’s in the pre-gig build. “We all get pretty worked up before we play… We don’t do a sudoku, eat a granola and then go on stage. We get in a mental space that I think leads to the shows having that kind of intensity.” While each member will writhe around, stir and strut to their more assured sound, Yannis himself occasionally goes one step further. The stage becomes long gone. He’ll end up in the crowd, on a balcony, hanging off a chandelier if such an