Live: Funeral For A Friend

17th January

Gorilla

1/10

Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation was arguably the most important record of 2003 if you were a teenager and into that sort of music. Those fans have not forgotten FFAF. Now in their late twenties and thirties they packed Gorilla out. A largely male fan-base with more than its fair share of tattoos, piercings and dark clothing.

Matt Davies confidence on the night was bordering on arrogance. In between every song or two he was preaching that “after 14 years this still matters to us, after 14 years you still matter to us and after 14 years the music still matters to us” he just kept going on and on with this heartfelt drivel.
It was hard to tell if he was drunk, high or both but he was struggling to sing the songs properly or make sense in his incessant speeches. At one point he promised to crowd-dive, proclaiming he is “fast as fuck” but then didn’t.

A disproportionate amount of set-time was spent talking about music rather than playing it.

He claims that he makes “music with a fucking message”. He wails about “no racism, sexism or homophobia”. He decides the point of FFAF is to “destroy against oppression”. He might as well have told me that he could fly. After paying £20 for a ticket, spending a few hours seeing the support acts, and drinking £4 beers no one was in the mood for “self-help” punk rock speeches.

If he wants to release a podcast, or have political mini-skits in the album, there is nothing wrong with that. But this was neither the time nor the place to form a political party. Matt openly said that he didn’t care if people didn’t like the new stuff; his attitude sucked harder than some of his new songs.

The sound engineering was an absolute joke, probably the worst of any gig I have been to in Manchester. The amplification was so poor you could not distinguish one song from another.

The fact that many of the songs from Chapter & Verse sound very similar was the nail in the coffin for this gig. At least they played ‘History’.

If Matt Davies wants to change things; why doesn’t he run for Bridgend MP?