Fanfarlo at Field Day 2009
Fanfarlo’s music can be pitched neatly into the middle of a variety of acts that have had huge cult appeal over the last three to four years. Lead singer Simon Balthazar sounds very much like the singer from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!. The piano builds and stuttering crescendos sound a lot like the Arcade Fire, and the slow horn led waltzyer numbers in their set list sound an awful lot like Beirut.
This could be construed as a terrible slur against their abilities as song writers, but what is important is that they also have the intensity and talent of all of those bands, and as a result their live show can be very exciting indeed.
The six-piece flit between a wide range of instruments (from mandolin to glock and from trumpet to accordion) which keeps the audience constantly on its toes. It all comes to a wondrous head on final song ‘The Walls Are Coming Down’, which has the same building euphoria that Arcade Fire nailed on ‘Rebellion (Lies)’, but with the added charm of it being sung by a band that an audience can feel closer to through the musicians obvious delight of performing live.