Friendly Fires & The XX @ The Fonda in Hollywood - 11/21/09

What better day to start my music blog than the day after my most recent show!

Last night, Saturday Nov. 21st, I went to see Friendly Fires & The XX at the Fonda in Hollywood, CA. The XX is a young British quartet that I was only recently introduced to in early October. The female lead singer, Romy Madley Croft, has a very soft & breathy voice that adds a sexy element to their music.

For not knowing their entire repertoire, I enjoyed their show a lot. They could've used a more creative lighting set-up to enhance the mood a bit but, for being relatively new to the scene, they did a decent job.

Crystalised by The XX - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pib8eYDSFEI

Friendly Fires was last night's headlining act. FFs are another young British group whose genre can best be classified as dance punk indie pop (the more categories, the more variety!). I'd heard of these guys before but never really listened to their music until I was turned onto The XX & got tickets to their show that Friendly Fires just happened to be headlining. I needed to do some homework.
 

Friendly Fire's music is fun & energetic with cool beats, the lead singer is a great dancer & they make very visually creative music videos. I think I was expecting a little more from their live performance than I got last night but I still had a great time dancing with all the diehard fans. Again, they definitely could've stepped it up a notch with their lighting but not every show can have visuals as breathtaking as I've seen at Phish, The Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Roger Waters, Daft Punk, etc. I've probably just become a lighting snob.

Skeleton Boy by Friendly Fires - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyA8zfouG4Y

Last night's show didn't necessarily blow me away but there are countless concerts I've attended that did. You'll hear all about the classic shows I'll never forget in posts to come :-)