A Band In Their Prime: Faith No More Dazzle London

Dismissing rumours of a reunion months before it happened, convincing fans that several tours would be their last, hinting at new material with ‘mystery songs’ and tweets - Faith No More seem to take great enjoyment from teasing their fans.

Tonight at Camden’s Roundhouse, the second of two London dates, is no different: the pre-show playlist stops and starts once the stage has been set up (with a white backdrop and boxes upon boxes of flowers), with huge cheers from the audience at every pause, but Mike Patton & co. do not appear.

Eventually the white suits emerge from behind the white sheets, and Patton leads a man dressed in a black gimp suit onto the stage with a chain, and “Motherfucker” erupts. The band quickly move on to a very aggressive “Be Aggressive”, and the tone for the evening is set. The light show would make a mediocre musical performance more than worth the ticket price. There’s no real use of strobes, or ‘fancy’ lights, but the regular lighting rig of the Roundhouse (often used for theatre) creates an amazing backdrop on the white material behind the band.

There really are few bands even in their prime who could make such a noise, perform with such energy or capture a crowd’s attention so completely - but then, despite forming almost 35 years ago, Faith No More are in fact a band in their prime. May’s ‘Sol Invictus’ may have received mixed reviews, but many of the songs are received as warmly by the fans here as classics from three decades ago, and any perceived weakness in their return to the studio is made irrelevant by the power the band brings to the stage. Power that Mike Patton seems well aware of each time he puts his microphone to the end of a megaphone to deliver a deafening, manic laugh.

It’s clear that most of the crowd at this concert are decidedly Faith No More fans. The majority of the songs received a reaction that most bands would kill to get for their most popular track, with far more movement and noise than would be expected from a room of people of a rather lower average age. Occasionally the atmosphere calms down, when Patton asks everyone to ‘chillax’ for example, or when the disco ball is lit up for “Easy”; but this is a brief respite, the eye of the storm.

There’s a call for requests, though everyone knows they’ll not actually be taking any - the setlist is exactly what the crowd wants and it seems the band can do no wrong. A wave goodbye that, of course, becomes a question about the queen’s sexuality, precedes “Superhero”, their last song…a teaser before a dazzling three song encore.

To find out more about Faith No More, click here.

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Words by Emily Kyne

COMMENTS

• Emily Kyne
  This had to be one of my favourite shows of 2015, stunning