It’s been a decade since Funeral For A Friend bagged their highest charting single with ‘Streetcar’ from the band’s second album Hours.
In an era when the official UK charts are saturated with the polished guitar sounds of the George Ezras and Ed Sheerans of the world, it’s surprising such a gritty post-hardcore band can make a dent.
But sure enough, new album Chapter And Verse is on course to break the Top 40, the band’s seventh consecutive LP to do so. Not that the boys from South Wales hang their hopes on chart success, mind. They’ve always just been concerned with making the music they love - and that's why fans have crammed into Camden’s Electric Ballroom.
Support acts Creeper and No Bragging Rights set the tone for an intense evening - tonight was about the music, no gimmicks.
The headliners kicked off with ‘Pencil Pusher’, the latest single from Chapter And Verse. But it didn't take long for the boys to treat us to some nostalgia with classics ‘Bend Your Arms To Look Like Wings’ and ‘Juneau’ transporting the crowd back to 2003’s ‘Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation’.
Contrasted against FFAF’s classics, their new material shows how much they’ve matured. 'You've got a bad case of the religions' and '1%' went down a storm. There was a sharper sound and a clearer message in the lyrics.
The latter track came after an impassioned speech from Matt about the global wealth divide – apt in a month when Oxfam revealed that half the world’s wealth is owned by just 1% of the population.
The theme of social inequality was threaded throughout the show. FFAF closed with the classic ballad 'History', which Matt told the crowd was ode South Wales, which he said was "practically a Second World country". It was a reminder, if anyone was needed, that even if you never hear Funeral For A Friend on Radio One they’re still playing the music they love – and they’re still doing it bloody well.
