Club Velvet
Mexico City
21.08.09
In terms of gigs from international bands, Mexico City isn’t quite up there with the likes of London, New York and Los Angeles in the ‘spoilt for choice’ stakes. However, in terms of crowd enthusiasm, it appears to be a different story; as tonight hundreds of sharply-dressed folks crowd around Club Velvet like a swarm of particularly excited bees around a honey pot.
Many of them are begging for spare tickets for what will be Friendly Fires‘ second visit to the Mexican capital; and the show’s sold-out status is proof enough that the St Albans quartet have made plenty of new friends since the first time around.
The club is roughly the size of London’s Electric Ballroom, but whereas the latter has been showing its age for a long time, Velvet is clearly a new club on the block: with shiny fittings and Smirnoff vodka logos plastered over every pristine surface. The crowd are (for the most part) a worryingly cool bunch, with designer jeans and skyscraper heels in abundance, but thankfully they aren’t too cool to dance.
Local synth-funk merchants Neon Walrus aren’t quite as interesting or unique as their name might suggest, but they do have some pretty arresting basslines up their sleeves, and hence manage to get a few bodies swaying on the increasingly packed dancefloor. Meanwhile, those in the guest area are enjoying the presence of a free ‘create your own Smirnoff cocktail’ bar, and yours truly manages to slip past the security to join in the fun. The ‘Can’t Dance But I’m Gonna Try’ is made of equal parts vodka, watermelon sours, and Sprite – and if you think the name sounds clumsy, wait til you’ve had three of them. Hic.
Friendly Fires are on a roll right now, with a Mercury Music Prize nomination for their self-titled debut album, and plenty of successful festival appearances already under their relatively young belts. They hit the stage just after midnight, and are clearly delighted by the utter pandemonium that ensues in the crowd; a heroes’ welcome, no less.
In front of such a partisan bunch, FF were never going to struggle, but tonight they really pull out all the stops for an energetic, sweat-soaked performance. The stop-start rhythms of ‘Jump In The Pool‘ could get a dead donkey dancing, the Rapture-esque funk of ‘Lovesick‘ incites mass bouncing down at the front, and the epic chorus of ‘Paris’ envelopes a room like a cloud of spaced-out musical euphoria. Throughout, frontman Ed Macfarlane smiles as if he can’t quite believe this is happening, and this does seem a slightly surreal situation for four young (but talented) guys from the home counties.
Whether they’ve got what it takes to keep this impressive momentum going in the long term remains to be seen, but tonight Friendly Fires prove to be a pretty exhilarating live act, and one that is worthy of Mexico City’s love.
Alex Gosman
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