Music Review: Friends at XOYO
Chay Allen catches up with Friends at XOYO in Shoreditch.
11 Feb 2012, 08:09
Friends
A region’s identity is almost always defined by the goods it exports: think Dublin and the mind turns to Guinness, Denmark - bacon, Greece - ancient wisdom, feta cheese and global bankruptcy. Brooklyn? Hip new bands producing the latest in cool apparently. Testament to this is the roll call of talent this district of New York has produced over the past few years, including among others MGMT, Vampire Weekend, and Yeasayer. The latest addition to this illustrious group is Friends: a young band with a vintage feel, they haven’t just embodied the zeitgeist, they’ve bludgeoned it, stolen its passport and have assumed its identity.
Formed in late 2010 while four fifths of the group were sweating it out in a vegan restaurant, the band, fronted by edgy seductress Samantha Urbani, has quickly risen to prominence this side of the Atlantic. Featured in NME’s top 50 artists of 2011, and now part of the BBC’s “Sound of 2012”, this recognition was echoed by the heavy demand for tickets to their sell-out European tour, culminating in an appearance at the 800-capacity XOYO in Shoreditch on Wednesday night.
The secret to the organic success of the band was plainly evident the moment Urbani sauntered onto stage, casually mentioning that the metal barrier separating her from the audience was going to have to go. The emphasis the band places upon engaging with their public shows how switched on they are to the power of social advertising. Not only does Urbani spend much of the set dancing with the crowd, or aiming fruit into their mouths, at one point she even noticed a reveller she’d invited to the gig after having a Skype conversation with him late last year. It really is textbook advertising for the early twenty-first century, an MBA with catchy lyrics and a synth.
Given they’ve only released four tracks so far, most of the hour-long set featured new material. Distinctly Friends in sound, with a full helping of the same dreamy-glitzy pop that’s propelled them thus far, the newbies were dispersed with crowd pleasers such as ‘His Girl’ and its hypnotic bass-line, the infectiously seductive ‘Friend Crush’, and their geek-chic cover of the eighties track ‘My Boo’.
Urbani seems genuinely excited to have finished the tour. Indeed I get the impression that she has the energy of all five band members twice over, including on and off the tour bus. I’d heard earlier in the day of her impromptu decision to tattoo Oliver Duncan, the drummer, on their way from Berlin to the UK and, eyes lighting up, she is only too keen to show me her work, grabbing Duncan’s arm to reveal the cookie marked on his elbow. Apparently Duncan loves cookies, and now has one permanently out of reach. You can forgive him for appearing a bit Eeyore about the whole affair.
If travelling through Europe with the Marquise de Sade tests one’s friendship, such rock and roll antics do wonders for the band’s hipster image. Though Matthew Molnar, the only member of the quintet not to have worked in THE vegan restaurant, is at pains to dispel this, insisting that as individuals they are fundamentally uncool. His argument is however undermined somewhat by the retro multi-coloured baseball cap and gold chain he sports.
Having first rehearsed a mere eighteen months ago, Friends already have another UK tour booked for this year. They’ve created a seductive, sassy sound and, barring any major tattooing disasters between gigs, expect big things for this group over the next few years. Otherwise, Brooklyn olive oil anyone?
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