StopSmiling

• Secret Show:
  SUPER FURRY ANIMALS
• at the STOP SMILING STOREFRONT
• 02.16.2008

Chicago, Illinois

On February 16th, as fervor built in anticipation of a Super Furry Animals concert at the Metro, STOP SMILING was gearing up to host two-fifths of the Welsh pysche-rock band for a small acoustic show at our Chicago headquarters. At half past two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, lead singer Gruff Rhys and lead guitarist Huw Bunford finished their breakfasts onstage while people shuffled in wearing winter coats and sipping dollar cans of beer.

SFA, one of our favorite groups, have a lush, imaginative sound seemingly from another planet. On Saturday, they employed some experimental methods involving hand gestures and percussive scissor snipping. Using a metronome, a Raagini tone-maker and a tiny keyboard as backup, unexpected harmonies percolated up and seemed to surprise the performers themselves. They clearly work within their own language. (As the story goes, Alan McGee of Creation Records once asked the group to sing in English for future concerts, only to discover that they did sing in English, only their accents were too thick to decipher.)

Rhys and Bunford agreed to set aside the playlist for the evening’s main gig and played old hits in exchange. The acoustic version of “Fire in My Heart” was phenomenal. They even ad-libbed a song about a centipede with lines such as “It takes 100 steps to go up one stair” and "The bill for boots is quite expensive.” They ended the afternoon with a medley and, when prompted, those in attendance waved their fingers in the air.

— Lee Rachel Foley

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photography by: Kirstie Shanley & Lee Rachel Foley