The Fauves

Did they – the jammed-in audience – come out of nostalgia? Sentimentalism? Reverence? Passion? Lack of Friday evening entertainment options? Whatever the reasons, a sold out East Brunswick Club was the site of a triumphant thousandth show for The Fauves. If they were intermittently out of tune, out of key and falling on the wrong side of a rhythm, this wasn’t an audience there to judge them harshly for it: singalongs, cheers at the opening chords of familiar songs – high spirits indeed.

As the black curtain around the stage was ceremoniously rolled back, The Fauves launched into ‘True Love Waits,’ the opener on their 2006 album Nervous Flashlights. The set, thus opened, went on to present prime moments from across their 19 year career: early on ‘Dwarf on Dwarf’ and ‘Caesar’s Surrender’, Doctor’s finely aged contributions to their second full-lengther, The Young Need Discipline, highlighted his innate knack for an understated, bittersweet melody; the dark dance-pop of ‘Nairobi Nights’ (“remember those hot Nairobi nights/Malarial pallor in the gloomy twilight/Jodhpurs clinging to the skin so tight/Quinine, gin and a head so light”) from Footage Missing was the set’s pinnacle – the four-part acapella breakdown, a crowd following in fine voice and then Coxy’s hilarious cry of “step aside” before launching into a solo; from the same album, Doctor’s tender ‘Right Wing Fags’ (“I thought you might be a Liberal/I didn’t see the One Nation thing coming”) saw him alone on stage before the band rejoined him; a subdued rendition of Future Spa’s ‘Understanding Kyuss’; the encore-closing, rough-but-it-doesn’t-matter version of ‘Everybody’s Getting a 3 Piece Together’ with original bass player Andrew ‘Jack’ Dyer.

It could easily have been mere nostalgic reverie, but The Fauves’ continuing commitment to good songwriting (as witnessed on Nervous Flashlights, their strongest record since Lazy Highways) and regular gigging kept this from being some indie-rock instalment of the Countdown Spectacular.

by Ben Gook