Wednesday, 4/04/12 The Futureheads @ London, Union Chapel

When a band announce that they are going to release an acappella album it is going to raise a few eyebrows. Surely Glee has made acappella so unpopular that no artist wants to go there - enter The Futureheads.

When you think about it, if any band were to do it, it would be The Futureheads. They already feature many vocally harmonic tracks in their back catalogue. Nonetheless tonight's show was a brave move.

There was no better venue than London's Union Chapel to showcase their vocal talents with their harmonics empowering the stunning church venue.

Opening with their take on Richard Thompson's 'Beeswing', with the crowd sitting on the church pews, it is rather strange to say the least. Not the song, just the experience. The band then headed into the track that started their current project, their cover version Kelis's 'Acapella' which they recorded for a radio ssession and it all went from there.

The Futureheads covered the best of their back catalogue as well featuring a complete revamp of fan favourites 'Decent Days And Nights' and 'Carnival Kids' with the loudest cheer saved for 'News And Tributes' from their second album provoking a response from frontman Barry Hyde “Oh you show up now, where were you in 2005?” in reference to the album's underwhelming sales.

Hyde also mentioned that “being in a church we surely have a lot of Black Eyed Peas fans” before heading into their version of 'Meet Me Halfway' which is arguably a lot better than the original. 'Ol Dun Cow' was the cherry on the top. The drinking tale encourages the most crowd interaction of the night with the crowd stamping their feet to simulate the knocking of the door and everyone shouting “MacIntyre”.

Support act The Cornshed Sisters were summoned to the stage to join in the oldest song in the English language ('Summer Is Icumen In') that the band promised us all night before inviting a 15 piece choir on to help out with Sparks cover 'The No. 1 Song In Heaven', 'Thursday' and the manic 'Manray'

The last pre-encore song was 'Beginning Of The Twist' done in a rather Greek style (complete with oi's) which was very entertaining. The penultimate song was always going to be The Futureheads adopted anthem 'Hounds Of Love'. The acoustic version of the song was received well but we couldn't help wondering why they didn't attempt to do it acappella styling. You would think it would be the perfect song to for the night but it didn't do anything to dampen the spirits.

This was much more of a show than a gig. It had comedy, heartbreak and joy. The on-stage banter between the band members was something to behold. These were guys who were having the same amount of fun as the crowd. True Futureheads style.