Openning night of Fathers of Fury's UK Tour at Wembley Arena
Amy Meyer and the rest of her young band
Riot! in the Boulevard leave the stage at Wembley Stadium to a huge applause from the fans. Many of them had probably never even heard of the young American band, but supporting someone like
Fathers of Fury must be great for them. This makes Jack Straw – front man and bass guitarist – smile. He loves thinking that he may have just helped this young up and coming band to make a name for themselves not only in their home country of America, but also in the United Kingdom!
The stage grows dark and the audience gradually quiet down. In the darkness of the stage, the foursome known to the world as
Fathers of Fury quietly prepare themselves for the first gig of their first headline tour of the UK! Jack looks across at Ollie, he can barely see him, but they both share a glance which means “Let’s not fuck this up”. Ollie steps forward onto something that makes a quiet noise – This allows Freddie to know that in 5 seconds they are about to start. Ollie breathes in deeply and rolls his head on his neck. He tightens his grip on his guitar and starts to play. Freddie Johnson starts to crash at the drums, as Ollie King’s guitar riff beautifully rips through the quieting noise of the crowd. 25 seconds into this riff, both Jack Straw and Isaac Thomson join into the playing with their guitars. This is when four solid beams of light crash down onto each member of the band. The fans go insane! The drums stop suddenly; and Jack steps to the front of the stage. The other two guitars drop off too, and Jack blasts a fantastic guitar solo from his base which has the fans screaming! He reverts back to what he was playing before and the other three join back in. But 15 seconds later, Isaac Thompson comes to the front and the same happens. Isaac’s solo is surprisingly good as he is the rhythm guitarist; people don’t really see a lot from him regarding how good he actually is with his guitar. 20 seconds later, the four of them are playing again. The track is only 2 minutes long, and it finishes with a crash; the stage lights up a little bit more as Jack steps up to the microphone for the first time.
“Hello London!” The crowd screams as the familiar mancunian accent and voice of Jack Straw rings through the stadium; “You all good? Good! Cus I know we are in such an awesome mood tonight!” The audience is still making so much noise; Jack is struggling to get his voice heard – even with the microphone! “So how did you like that little instrumental track? Well that is on our upcoming album, and that track is called
Kingdom. Next up, we have an ‘old’ track. I say old, because it was on our debut album. We felt that we should play some of the tracks from ‘
Fathers of Fury’ because we never really toured that album in the UK. So, get ready for our first top 3 hit –
Fairground Doubts!”
The crowd gets excited as they hear the steady drumbeat and the base and rhythm guitars start up the familiar tune. The first 45 seconds of the song is very calm, with Ollie strumming once every 5-10 seconds. Then Ollie starts to get his guitar into a proper tune, with the music flowing through the speakers, towards the sea of fans that have packed Wembley Stadium to its brim. Jack Straw’s powerful vocals slide from his lips for the first time during this performance. The verse smoothly comes to a close and the ‘chorus’ begins. It is not a verbal chorus, as it is meant to represent you gathering the courage to make the next step; the drumbeat quickens during the instrumental chorus, and then slows back down during the verses again.
Jack wipes his forehead as the song comes to a close, he is grinning uncontrollably as he sees how many people have come to see him and his three friends perform live! This is what the job is all about! “How did you all like that? That is one of the most meaningful tracks for me – I remember writing that not long before the @Chaos Awards last year; because I was going with the beautiful
Jenny Hudson. Anyway, enough of my life story;” he laughs; “next song would be another new track, called
The American Dream – we will be carrying on to play another track straight afterwards. That one is called
Rolling On.”
The track is an acoustic track, which starts with all three of the guitarists plucking at the same notes at the same time, and shortly after the start Freddie starts a quiet, controlled drumbeat. Jack’s vocals are calm and quiet, but loud enough to be heard over the fans. The chorus approaches and the song loses control and becomes much louder. Jack’s vocals become very powerful and you can see the song has a meaning to him through his eyes. The words, “American Dream, You are my American Dream” finish the chorus, and allow the song to go back to its original state. The song only has two chorus’ and the second is much the same as the first. The song finishes with Jack, Ollie and Isaac singing the line, “American Dream”. Jack smiles at the other two; and the song stops for a second. The boys then start up again, with a slightly more electronically influenced track; a light guitar riff is played by Ollie with a Freddie softly playing the drums beneath it. The verse begins shortly after Isaac and Jack join in with their guitars; Jack’s vocals are slightly louder than in
The American Dream, but just as controlled. Jack’s vocals blend beautifully with the music as it leads towards the chorus, where both Isaac and Ollie do a small amount of backing vocals; which is one of the main changes between the first and second album. Freddie picks up the pace of the drums during the chorus, as well as Ollie picking out a nice fast riff to play too. The remaining three verses are much the same as the first one, with the fourth verse being lyrically the same as the first. Just before the final verse starts, the music dies down and the song almost starts again. The final chorus is played, and then Ollie ends the song with another jaw-dropping riff; which is quickly followed by three swift crashed on the symbols.
The audience has gone absolutely crazy at this point, thousands of people in one building all screaming at the band, showing their appreciation. It makes Isaac warm inside, he drops his head in respect of what he has been given. “So we are now half way through our set for the night; so we figured we would shove in another ‘old’ track. Here is our debut single,
SUBTLE DISTRACTIONS!” This song was not successful on the
Top 20 Airplay Chart at all, but it is still a good track to play live. A tidy rhythm is played for the audience, before some energy is kicked into the song with the base and the drums. The rhythm guitar stays exactly the same throughout the entire song, and this is to signify that thing that you are reminded of – which was Ollie’s girlfriend (then ex) at the time of writing. During the chorus, the lead guitar plays the exact tune of the rhythm guitar at the same time to signify the times that you are reminded of that thing.
“So that was our debut single right there! Pretty happy with how that turned out;” Jack looks over to Ollie; “And that was written by Ollie about his girlfriend Talia during a brief split. Now I think that everybody in the audience here should give Ollie and Talia a little bit of a cheer, as it turns out that the two of them are ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED!!!!” With that, the audience is louder than at any point leading up to it. Ollie steps forward to the microphone and thanks all of the fans. Jack claps him as Ollie returns to his previous place; “and now for a slightly heavier song; this one is called
Watered Down!”
The song starts all at once, with noise coming from every direction. Freddie is smashing his drum to pieces while the others are all shredding their guitars. Jack then hits a huge note, which he then holds for a long time. Ollie then comes up to his microphone and stars to sing just as Jack is about to finish his massive note. Gradually Jack takes control of the vocals again; and as the chorus arrives, Jack’s vocals almost develop into screams! Which is a completely new side to Fathers of Fury; one which was very unexpected. The song calms down a bit during the next verse, but does again reach the climax from the chorus at the remaining ones. The song finishes with a bang, and Ollie then says “And this was watered down”; which was the only time that the song title was actually mentioned during the song. It receives a cheer, but it seems to have created a mixed view from the crowds.
“That was a little bit of an experiment on our behalves; we wanted to try something a little bit different to the usual stuff we do!” Jack laughs; “So next up is the final ‘old’ track of the night. Our other single from the first album –
Second Hand Rock Songs!” The audience cheers and Jack starts to sing with no music. Eventually, Isaac starts to play the rhythm, which helps to build up the atmosphere a bit. The chorus comes around and the song kicks in properly; after the chorus the drumbeat becomes quieter but remains excitable, to keep the audience ready for the chorus again.
The track fades out but Freddie keeps playing a steady drumbeat. Jack steps back up to the microphone, “So now, we have our last track – which is our latest single, and guess who is here people?!” Some gasps of excitement are heard from some people in the audience; the drums quicken; “
STACEY WALTON!!!” She walks onto the stage and the whole crowd goes insane! At this point Freddie smashes at the symbols.
“Hiya! Thanks for having me here guys!” She waves to the crowd again, and then she stands next to Jack waiting for the music to start. A heavy guitar riff washes over the crowd, as Ollie takes his power stance. He can see the audience waiting for the song to kick off. Half way through, Freddie kicks in with the drums, and an occasional symbol is thrown in too. The riff approaches the end and Freddie crashes down on the symbols five times. On the third hit, Stacey hits a long powerful note to kick the vocals into action. Stacey takes the first half of the first verse, with Jack taking over as it leads into the chorus. The chorus involves both of them singing together; which creates a strangely good harmony. Jack is playing an insane tune on his base under the chorus, with Ollie really taking the song to town with some crazy riffs. Isaac does incredibly well to keep the rhythm going and not stray off into something else with all of the other stuff which is going on during this song. The second verse is much the same as the first; but all goes quiet after the second chorus, except a massive not held by Jack and Stacey together. As this comes to an end, everything kicks back in and another chorus is sung, before everything going quiet and Jack simply saying “Powerhouse”. The stage goes dark as Jack, Stacey and the rest of the band all shout praise at the fans. The tour has begun.
Set-list:
Kingdom [new]
Fairground Doubts
The American Dream [new]
Rolling On [new]
Subtle Distractions
Watered Down [new]
Second Hand Rock Songs
Powerhouse (ft. Stacey Walton)
