
Failed stage diving, ensuing crowd mauling and Twitter feuding with Lostprophets all in the space of 24 hours, laud or loathe Foals front man Yannis Philippakis he's so outlandish, outspoken and pseudo-rebellious it's an unadulterated joy to bask in his self-righteousness in controlled moderation. Sophomore record Total Life Forever represented a true reincarnation for the Oxxxford quintet, as they returned from the Swedish outback wilder, woolier and wiser, with a marimba and accompanying multi-instrumentalist in tow and tonight's opener, the LP's title track bursts with treble trouble guitars finally played beneath the twelfth fret, tribal chanting, and Yannis clambering over every last monitor like the cellophaned goat he carts around in that Spanish Sahara video before whatever happened happened. A rejuvenated Cassius, stripped of brass follows, bolting from the blocks like will.i.am chasing the scent of Cheryl Cole, before the resonant harmonics of Olympic Airwaves reinvigorate Foals' lengthy abstinence from instant relevance. Whilst the final bombast of Red Socks Pugie, The French Open, Two Steps Twice and an Electric Bloom that sees Yannis brutally ravaged by a writhing throng of adoring human sweatboxes is as devastatingly brutal as Sean Kingston stamping on your toes, it's newer cuts Alabaster (their "stoner song") and the tropically tinged Miami that empower above all. And then there's Spanish Sahara. Sprawling celestially over seven of what ought to be the Roundhouse's most historic minutes, its ethereally eerie vapidity invokes a similar grandiosity to the calculated growth and catastrophic dissolving of polar ice caps as hairs prick and a sense of collective despair shrouds out the rest of the set, like genuine dry ice imported from the northerly nether regions of Sweden. Quite how such a euphorically unique moment translates to MP3 can then be gauged almost instantaneously once within reaching distance of an iTunes/ iPhone/ iPad/ iPod/ iChip you'll presumably be able to lodge into your cerebral matter this time next year.
Illustration courtesy of Hermine.