Super Furry Animals w/ Caribou @ the Metro - November 20, 2005

I'll get Caribou out of the way quickly. I thought they were really good. I'll probably listen to some of their stuff on Rhapsody if it's available. All I knew about them going in was that their very popular among the Pitchfork crowd, and they used to be called Manitoba until, hell I don't know, the province made them change their name or something. Anyway, very untraditional, very good set. Check them out.

Now for the headliners. This is the fourth time I've seen SFA, and every show has been absolutely fantastic. This one started off OK. SFA are at the point where they have so many albums (seven, plus a collection of B-sides) that you're almost never going to hear them play everything you want to hear them play. That's a given. And when you like a band's back catalog as much as I like theirs, it's almost impossible to not walk out slightly disappointed. But this show was special. This show will go down among the 60-75 shows I've seen as the one with the greatest encore of all time.

SFA generally open their show with some theatrics, but they upped the bar tonight. SFA always play with a big screen showing videos or just images or colors in the background. Tonight they opened with a video of someone in a golf cart wearing a jumpsuit with green lights all over it. This was set to the music from Rocky (not the 'Gonna Fly Now' one, but the one with the horns). The golf cart drove around to various locations and picked up four other guys in matching jumpsuits. At some point, the music switched to the A-Team theme, then back to Rocky. Don't know why. So the cart pulls into what is supposed to be backstage, and moments later, out come Gruff, Huw, Guto, Cian, and Daffyd all in matching green-lit jumpsuits. Pretty cool, really. So with that, let's get to the Incomplete and Out of Order Setlist® (although I think this one is pretty complete):

• International Language of Screaming
• Zoom
• Run, Christian, Run
• Golden Retriever
• Hello Sunshine
• The Horn
• Ohio Heat
• Cloudberries
• Atomik Lust
• Receptacle for the Respectable
• Ice Hockey Hair
  

At this point, they left the stage. This opening set took about an hour or so. So right about now, I'm feeling slightly disappointed, as I figure the encore can't be more than three or four songs, and there's still a lot I want to hear, although Gruff did break out the celery for "Receptacle....", so that was cool. But that's when the first few bars of 'Slow Life' started up, and the band re-took the stage for an amazing 35 more minutes of music.

• Slow Life
• Juxtaposed With You
• Lazer Beam
• Rings Around the World
• Do or Die
• Calimero
• The Man Don't Give a Fuck

It was flat out awesome. Every song I was hoping they'd still play, they played. Honestly, after hearing Ice Hockey Hair (which I never thought I'd hear live), I wasn't going to leave too upset. But this encore was simply incredible. By far the best I've seen. The 'Juxtaposed/Lazer Beam' back to back was, well, just try to listen to those songs live and not feel the need to move to the beat. It was like they were sandbagging. Just patiently setting up a terrific encore.

In true SFA style, the closed the set with "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" set to the video montage of Stalin, Moussilini, and for the first time I can remember, Duh-bya. It was a crowd favorite. After leaving the stage, the video concluded with closing credits, identifying the band members and crew (although something happened with the video and we missed the introductions of Gruff, Cian, and Daffyd). Anyway, probably the best show of the year so far, definitely in the top three.

For the non-Fanboy version of this review, go here.