Review: Fanfarlo @ ICA

By Talia Last edited 177 months ago
Review: Fanfarlo @ ICA
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Jeremy Warmsley playing with Fanfarlo
Jeremy Warmsley playing with Fanfarlo
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The ICA - home to a cinema, some art, a rather extortionate cafe, and tonight: Fanfarlo and guests.

First to take to the stage were London based Agaskodo Teliverek (which according to the goldmine of knowledge, Wikipedia, means ‘rearing stallions’ in Hungarian). The four piece were led by vocalist and keytar player Hiroe Takei who spent most of the set yelping and twirling around the stage like an escaped mental patient, at one point catapulting herself into the sparse audience, which even brought a smile to the stoic security guard’s face. Brilliant.

Stricken City were up next and it was exciting to see if they could live up to the hype that's been building around them. It’s easy to see why, they play catchy, danceable pop tunes that are pleasant to the ears and easy to digest. The barefoot and charismatic singer, Rebekah Raa has a powerful voice and a good stage presence, drawing cheers from the crowd as she bounded about with her giant feather boa.

Gradually more audience filtered in and by the time Fanfarlo took to the stage it was near enough full. The stage was converted into a giant black furnace, with Fanfarlo frontman Simon Balthazar noting ‘it’s hot up here’ on more than one occasion. But fear not, heat is not something that will stop Fanfarlo from putting on a seriously good show. The band tore through songs from their latest release ‘Resevoir’, buffed out to a six piece with accompaniment from London folkster Jeremy Warmsley. A musically proficient band, featuring mandolin, keys and trumpet- the sounds were beautiful. After their nine song set they returned for a two song encore, and treated the audience to a real gem as the whole band decamped from the stage and did a cover of the anthemic ‘In The Aeroplane Over The Sea’ completely unplugged and acoustic in the centre of the audience. Truly special.

Photos and words by Anika Mottershaw

Last Updated 03 June 2009