Hot Hot Heat, The Futureheads, Louis XIV – Live (April 13th, 2005)

April 13th couldn’t come fast enough. Louis XIV had just released a CD two weeks ago that I was in love with. Hot Hot Heat just released Elevator which was getting constant play in my CD player. And although I hadn’t heard much by The Futureheads, I had heard tons of great things about them. So all in all, this was one highly anticipated concert, and when it finally came around, I was pumped.

Kicking off the concert was San Diego’s Louis XIV. I walked into the pit seeing the lead singer trying to get the crowd to clap along, I immediately thought it was kind of dark as you could barely make out the band members, but I dismissed it as first. Sadly, that illumination problem lasted most of their set. It was incredibly dark, only a few times did they really light up the stage and for the rest of it the band were flooded in dark red and black, making it somewhat hard to see them. But still, the band sounded amazing. They sounded exactly like they do on their albums and played songs like Louis XIV, A Letter To Dominique, Illegal Tender, A Pledge Of Allegiance, Louis Reprise, and more, I just forget which ones exactly. Louis XIV even reached back into their catalogue and played The Grand Apartment from their self-titled release in 2003. Sadly, even though they sounded perfect, it seemed as if they were lacking a certain amount of energy and charisma. The members seemed stiff, and didn’t move much for most of their set. Luckily, for their final few songs they started to pick it up, especially for their closer Finding Out True Love Is Blind. If only they had had that energy the entire set, then I would’ve been much more impressed by them.

Next up were The Futureheads, and like I said before I hadn’t heard much material by them before hand, but I was still really excited to see what they did. You see, they are from Sunderland, which is my second-home town. My dad grew up there, I go back there every couple of years (going for five weeks this summer) and hell, my aunt even works with one of their aunts; so there was a slight personal excitement that came along with the band coming to town and the fact that they are huge in England struck some more interest with them. After seeing them live, I can see why they are getting big in England. They were full of energy, really got the crowd going. They played songs like Le Garage, Decent Days And Nights, A To B and many more which I don’t know the names of. Overall, an amazing set, and now I’ll have something to talk about when I go back to Sunderland this summer.

Finally, the band most people were there to see came on. Victoria BC’s Hot Hot Heat stepped onto the stage and played Island Of The Honest Man. Having just released Elevator around two weeks ago, Hot Hot Heat played a lot of songs from that album, along with a few from Make Up The Breakdown. The crowd eat it all up and went crazy. They sounded perfect, the vocals were spot on and vocalist Steve Bays ran around the stage like a mad man really getting into his performance. They played songs like Dirty Mouth, Ladies And Gentleman, Running Out Of Time, Bandages, Dance With Me Talk With Me and more. After a few minutes of waiting, the band came back on for an fifteen minute encore, opening that with Jingle Jangle. They didn’t spend much time talking, but rather ripped through song after song getting as much in as they could and played a very solid one hour set.

Overall, it wasn’t one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, but was a very entertaining one nonetheless. All the bands put on a good show, and I’m pretty sure I’d go and see them again if they came back through town.