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Concert Fri Apr 10 2015
Photos/Review: Foxygen at Cabaret Metro Thursday, August 9th, 2015
Sam France is a maniac. In a good way, that is. If you took the antics of Matthew Shulttz of Cage the Elephant and combined it with a little paisley, you might have something close. Or, even more accurate a Kevin Barnes in the height of Of Montreal's career. At the same time, there are also some heavy glam influences within the set, recalling the unpredictable energy and theatrics of a Rocky Horror Picture Show or Hedwig and the Angry Itch sort of feel with a combined drama and music and choreography from three energetic dancing ladies AKA Star Power.
Foxygen has created three studio albums filled with blissful folk, pop, and psychedelic tones. Live, their music takes on a much different feeling (Foxygen's website actually describes it as punk). The experience is charged up and the songs are ready to transform into a wildness that is it's very own animal, featuring a lead singer that may one day hail among the very greats that are Freddie Mercury of Queen, for example, if he doesn't accidentally break all of the bones in his limbs first. Lead singer Sam France is on fire. He is a collection of particles frantically crashing through space and all across the stage. It's difficult to keep your eyes on him and yet impossible to take them off. He is a charming fast paced enigma, one to consider after the show is long over and your safe from a thrashing crowd, passionately enthralled with song.
If you hadn't already gathered what this review has been saying, France on his own is like a one man glam 75 minute marathon dominating the stage. In addition to that, he had three dancers, a keyboardist, two guitarists, a bass player and a drummer which made for a full rich sound that really brought some of their recorded tracks to fruition and provided the audience with a performance that was filled with moments that were anything but dull as France, free from any instrument, thrashed around, towered above the crowd, fell to his knees, jumped around, and in general made it seem like he suffered from the kind of hyperactivity that can actually be entertaining.
With all that energy, France deserves to play larger and larger venues and will probably get there sooner than later. The passionate crowd certainly relished in his every flail and crushed against each other to get even closer than they were so there's a definite following growing. Additionally, with his youth, France and co. could have a career of many albums left to go! A couple of asides-when this reviewer was unlocking her bicycle, one of the females of the couples in attendance was talking about a man she was dating and proclaimed, "But no one is as glam as Sam France" and while this reviewer was waiting for the light to change on Addison and Racine, a car blaring Foxygen had people dancing in the crosswalk.
lesigh / April 10, 2015 8:43 PM
"France deserves to play larger and larger venues and will probably get there sooner than later"
I assume this is your first time seeing them? They've played many a bigger venue, in Chicago no less.