Live review from Fairchild Live in Hong Kong
Setlist:
- Strangers
- Outside
- Burning Feet
- Not in Love
- Collide
- Escape
- Dancer
- T.I.D.
- F.I.O.
- Arcadia
- Villages
I should start off by admitting that I probably don’t have the best, or most relevant, references to talk about this band. Indie has never been a side of pop music I’ve ever been very interested in; the jangly variety I find underwhelming, and the side of the genre that has roots in the New Romantics sound sacrifice punch for ambience, I find. This was worrying me as the band was about to start its set; that they would be the ambient-type of indie, and I would have no idea what to say. The fact that they didn’t quite fit on the (somewhat meagre) stage didn’t particularly buoy my spirits either. It gave me that tight, claustrophobic, vertiginous feeling of being unsure that many audiences display at the beginning of a show, which requires a firm hand on the till to remedy.
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. The second they began, all of the band had a calming self-assuredness about them, as if they would scorn the tiles and the resulting tinniness. And, indeed, the tin in the air didn’t seem to matter. The band’s sound is soothing, polished, shimmering, occasionally soaring tones which they combine with swaying, undulating, syncopated beats and goosed up with a solid rhythm section (the best kind). It helps a lot that singer Adam has a properly good voice, as opposed to what seems to pass off for “good” among many bands, and this helps the melody in their songs a lot; having someone who has real singing skill and a pleasing timbre to their voice can advance a band’s cause by leaps and bounds.
If I were to crudely sum it up, their sound goes in the general direction of Kings of Leon (the little I have heard of them), but this would be to do their skill at creating the sound an injustice. There were shades of many different kinds of sound, from the danciness of Blondie on Burning Feet to the Madonna-like feel on Dancer, to the poppy guitar flashes on Escape that echo Kool & the Gang (what’d I tell you about the dated references?), it’s a little like if REM mixed with Depeche Mode. The unabashed peppiness of the composition actually works in their favour, by making their sound sweeter, and this is backed up by the close harmonies, interlocking guitars and tapping on the guitar, a technique that I fail to understand why it isn’t used more in this kind of music. In all, a terrific set that added to the cool agreeableness of the evening, and totally justified the trip to the Peak. I’m glad I got to hear them and prove my misconceptions about indie music wrong.
— Shashwati Kala
澳洲6人樂隊Fairchild風格屬流行搖滾，主音、2支結他、keyboard、bass、鼓的編制令聲音組合有更多變化。全晚共演繹了11首歌曲，首先以抒情搖滾Strangers作開首，接著的Outside用結他點綴主旋律，編曲對營造推進感起了十分重要作用；帶懷舊感的Burning Feet旋律性依然十足，鼓點亦十分穩定，轉換節奏顯得頗為輕鬆。Not in Love以ambient影子的前奏開首，配合運用了effector的電結他令聲音感覺層次更豐富和平均。Collide時經常出現feedback問題令演奏歌曲受到阻礙，未能表達應有我感覺；期後的Escape各部份發揮平均，副歌部份加入了和聲，發揮亦十分穩定，但音色的細節部份稍稍給低音結他及鼓組蓋過。T.I.D的鼓樂部份的編曲於當晚曲目中屬變化最多的一首，與節奏感強勁的低音結他配合成了全曲的亮點；終曲Stay Young與歌名一樣，充份呈現了對未來盼望的感覺，尾段長音伴奏構成了不斷廷伸效果。Fairchild雖然在曲風和聲音上實驗性元素不強，但6人編制有利營造出平均且豐富音色的編曲，配合度不俗的樂器令聲音十分集中及穩定，在聲音較反彈的場地上演出仍保有一定水準。
– Becky Wong
