Fanfarlo
Grizzly Bear Review: Thursday July 1, 2010
After the suitably suited outdoors for our airy opening acts, the rather more sombre Fanfarlo suit the atmospherics of the big top tent.
There's the energetic 'The Walls Are Coming Down', R&B influenced melodies of 'Waiting in the Wings' and a bombastic Comets. Creater and lead singer Simon Balthazaar jutters like David Byrne Talking Heads era on 'Venus' accompanied by Leon Beckenham on trumpet and Cathy Lucas on mandolin.
Bringing the mood back down with a string-led opener dedicated to his native Sweden, fading out to the sound of sonar, only resonating from vocal chords not machinery.
Darkness takes hold for a fleeting moment before the Beirut-esque dulcet tones of Simon while the Wurlitzer hyme chords turn the big top tent into the house of lord Balthazaar.
'Fire Escape' is followed by a new song about the street botherers in Dalston called 'On The Wheels'. Finishing on what is possibly their happiest tune of the night, as if it was the moment they had been building to throughout their set. The Cascading string outro becoming an Epic trumpet bursting finale. Fanfarlo are a band who pull off that magical trick of sounding joyful and achingly sad.
