What
happens when some Scottish dudes find themselves in some small town in the
middle of North Carolina in the midst of a U.S. tour?
One
of my favorite bands, the Glasgow-based group Frightened Rabbit, made their way
some 4,000 miles to Carrboro, N.C.—where they promptly drew on the energy of a
passionate crowd in trying their best to burn down the venerable Cat’s Cradle.
The
crew got off to something of a slow start, with the appearance of some sound
issues and lead singer Scott Hutchison switching guitars several times.
Unfortunately, the iffy beginning came at the expense of the first few songs,
which included two of my favorite tunes. The band kicked off the set with
“Holy,” the best song off their most recent album, “Pedestrian Verse,” then
followed with “The Modern Leper” before leaping into my second-favorite
Frightened Rabbits tune, “Old Old Fashioned.”
But
every stellar show has a holy-shit moment, and this one came with a stomping “Nothing
Like You” that represented the true beginning of the concert.
The
band also rolled out a much-slowed-down version of “My Backwards Walk” and a
solo acoustic take on “Good Arms vs. Bad Arms.” Both struck me as evidence of a
group finding ways to stay fresh, exploring some what-if territory in the midst
of a lengthy tour in a foreign land.
Other
highlights included a bouncy “The Oil Slick,” a stirring “Head Rolls Off,” an
emotional “Poke”, a haunting and underrated “State Hospital” and a manic “Acts
of Man” to conclude the set on an eardrum-shattering note.
The
standout of the three-set encore was “Living in Colour,” and the last song of
the night, “The Loneliness and the Scream,” featured Wintersleep (the opening act,
a Canadian band whose music isn’t my cup o’ tea, but they had a good sound and
were well-received) accompanying in a memorably boot-stomping version of that
song.
In
the category of “minor quibbles,” I did notice that the set lists from the U.S.
tour have essentially been the same night to night, which I usually don’t care
for, as I’d like to believe that bands leave themselves freedom to open up the
catalog if the moment or the audience inspires them. And on another personal
note, I felt like the absence of “The Greys”—perhaps the band’s signature song
and my personal favorite—was a huge omission.
But
overall, Hutchison seemed genuinely, pleasantly shocked at the outpouring of
energy and emotion stemming from the crowd—even on a Monday night—which led to
some “top bants” (as my Brit colleagues would say) between he and the audience.
He even engaged the audience in a bit of harmonizing toward the end of the
show, and especially in the latter half of the set, you really got a sense of
the band responding to and rewarding an unexpectedly boisterous crowd.
In the closing moments of a searing show, Hutchison
promised that Frightened Rabbit would “definitely be back” at the Cat’s Cradle.
Cheers, mates; I’ll be there.
