Concert Review: The Futureheads/Dutch Uncles at Scala, London, UK

Seeing bands on a worldwide tour is always fun, but often they have no attachment to the city, or even country where they are playing. Most of the time when I have seen European bands in America, the exchange of entertainment is, at best, polite and earnest. They want that connection, but quite honestly have no feel for the culture for the audience members, venue and city where they are present. You can’t hold it against them. I enjoyed it when I saw Blur in Chicago a few years back, but knew it was surely an apple to the orange that is seeing them in the United Kingdom.

I have always had a soft spot for Brit Pop. Living in London in 1995-1996 during the high water marks for Oasis, Blur, Pulp, The Verve, Supergrass, Everything But The Girl and countless other British bands has kept it my guilty pleasure. One of the regrets was never having the motivation, timing and/or money to see these bands in their element. That is why I was so pleased that I could wrangle two of my friends in London to pick me up an extra ticket to see a British band in London.

The Futureheads hail from Sunderland, a coastal town in the far north of England and about 15 miles from Newcastle. London is about 5 hours south by car, but the northern contingency was out in full force. One of my friends referred to these fans are “Geordies” understandably without any affection.  For the first two bands, the crowd was calm and enthusiastic. However, as the main act came on, the electricity was turned up. When their post punk riffs and full band of vocal harmonies started, the inevitable shift came and the mosh pit commenced its swirl. Concentrating equally on their new album The Chaos and earlier favorites, they rattled off pleaser after pleaser to the joy of everyone, especially the Newcastle Geordies (not to be confused with the Mackems of Sunderland).

Live highlights from the new album included the single, and frontrunner for the second single, “Heartbeat Song” and “Struck Dumb”. These two tracks are what are best in Brit Pop and what is often missing in American rock music; unabashed hooks and sing-a-long lyrics over wailing guitars and stomping drums. It is a simple formula that gets overthought and underappreciated here in the States. Other standouts were the joyously chanted choruses of “The Beginning Of The Twist”, “Walking Backwards”, “Meantime” and “Decent Days And Nights”. My personal favorite song is their amazing cover of Kate Bush’s “Hounds Of Love” that was started with the audience participation of those amazing oh’s that could fill a football stadium with enough energy to carry the home team.

I would be remiss to not mention the openers from Manchester Dutch Uncles, a great band with some obvious home grown influences via Suede and The Smiths. They are a engaging live band and are already well defined in their sound.  It was an added bonus that I would not have witnessed in an American band, especially in the Midwest.

The new Futureheads album The Chaos is available for pre-order to be shipped on June 1st.

Most of the tracks below are available for download by pressing the down arrow.

The Futureheads - Struck Dumb


The Futureheads - Heartbeat Song


The Futureheads - Meantime


Dutch Uncles - Face In