Live Review: Foals at the Hordern Pavilion

​“Everything not saved will be lost.” 

​With the inevitable hint of blackened house lights, a computerised voice beckons the audience.
 
“Everything not saved will be lost.”
 
It chants the name of Foals’ latest album. 
 
“Everything not saved will be lost.”
 
 It repeats, several times.

“Everything not saved will be lost.”

​And then it happens. Foals swarm the stage and wasting no time at all kick into ‘On The Luna’.  Accompanied by a heaving bassline and pronounced guitar riffs, Yannis Phillipakis shows no vocal restraint.
 
The crowd is then struck by bright white strobes as What Went Down’s ‘Snake Oil’ plays out. It’s soon contrasted by the dulcet tones of Antidote’s ‘Olympic Airways’. Subsequent standouts ‘My Number’ and ‘Black Gold’ colour the set with their distinctive individual moods but nothing can compare to the intensity of ‘Spanish Sahara’. More slow and gentle than the way you hear it on Total Life Forever, ‘Sahara’ is an elongated tale of jerked tears and spiked emotive tenacity. It’s Foals at their finest, and tonight the band remind their audience just how profound and propelling their music can be.
 
Another memorable moment arrives with ‘Inhaler’. A flurry of bending riffs amasses in weight as the band stretch the song out over its looped motif. When it seems like Foals are finished, Yannis urges the crowd crouch to the beer-soaked floor before shooting upward to demand an encore. The crowd comply and the band indulges them, ending the night with ‘Balloons’, ‘What Went Down’ and the frenetic ‘Two Steps, Twice’.
 
Four wondrous brains who continue to captivate and create with profound energy, Foals didn’t disappoint.

Words by Hannah Galvin 
Photo: Mitch Lowe/Splendour in the Grass