[ATTENDED: April 30, 2019] Foxing
I feel like I should have known more about Foxing. They have a huge following and have played Philly many times, but I really didn’t know anything about them.
Their new album was getting quite good reviews. But the more I read about them the more confused I got. Their music was described as emo, post-rock, math-rock, and even chamber-rock.
So I listened to a few songs, didn’t really grab on to anything, and decided I’d stay for them anyway.
And holy cow were they amazing.
One thing the reviews never really talked about was how heavy and loud they are live. I have since listened to their albums and they really sound nothing like the explosion of intensity that their live show is. You can hear the kernels of the songs in their, but live, wow.
Like Now, Now, it was pretty dark on stage, but the lighting was much more interesting and welcoming. I could actually see most of the band most of the time.
There were seven people on stage. The main instigator is Conor Murphy who sings and occasionally plays trumpet (!). He’s a pretty regular looking guy with glasses and a mustache. I never, ever expected him to sing like he did. He sang high notes, he screamed at the top of his lungs. He had power and rage. He was dynamic and funny and entertaining. It was incredible.
At times they reminded me of TV on the Radio–because of the pulsing electronic sounds and Murphy’s falsetto vocals.
I stood in front of guitarist Eric Hudson who was also full of energy. He jumped around, played wild solos, sang backup and was hard to ignore.
The rest of the band was pretty hard to see. Ricky Sampson I assume was the other guitarist. Jon Hellwig I assume was on drums. They also have some touring members. I’m assuming that was Brett Torrence on bass and synth. And behind Hudson was a woman on keys and more whom I’m guessing was Emma Tiemann.
The one difference for this set, and which got everyone excited was that Travis Breeon Cobb was on saxophone. Travis Breeon Cobb was, until recently, a fixture in the NJ/Philly scene but will be moving to Georgia. This was his last gig in Philly for a while and he totally brought it and the fans were totally into it.
They opened with “Grand Paradise” which opens their new album Nearer My God. Murphy was a maniac–jumping around to the time changes and being a bundle of energy. The song was about five times louder and more intense that the recorded version. At one point Murphy even fell to his knees to sing the lyrics. And when he pulled out a trumpet for a solo, everyone went berserk.
The crowd was perpetually on the verge of a mosh pit. There was a lot of pogoing and pushing and a small amount of crowd surfing, but a pit never quite formed–the music is a tad chaotic for that, I think. But the energy was reciprocated.
For second song “The Medic,” the whole crowd sang along especially to the final section “Because I want to be loved.”
Murphy kept saying that there were a few songs which they hadn’t played last time they were in town. I didn’t realize that they had been in town just a few months earlier (in September) right after the album came out and that they had played a few of those songs already. I can’t remember which ones he said they hadn’t played, but judging by some previous setlists, I’d say that “I Won’t Drown” and “Lambert” were new. I really enjoyed “Lich Prince,” as well.
They went back to their previous album Dealer for the gorgeous The Magdalene which featured another trumpet solo. After a couple more new ones they returned to Dealer for “Night Channels.”
The song that utterly blew me away was “Gameshark.” It was loud and frenetic and really intense and Murphy came right over by us to scream the lyrics.
They followed that with a song from their debut and another huge fan reaction–“Rory,” They jammed this song out for quite a while, with Hudson playing guitar behind his head and Travis Breeon Cobb duetting with Murphy on the same mic.
They ended with a crushing “Nearer My God.” At one point during this song, Hudson put his guitar into the audience and everyone up front got to pluck strings and bang on it a bit. Then he put the guitar right over us–just out of my arms reach. I was really psyched because I had been recording that just as it happened. Then I looked down and saw that I hadn’t actually started the camera–this new update to the phone has put the button in a slightly different place and I have missed a bunch of cool stuff because of it. Boo.
Well, there’s always my memory.
I was won over to Foxing long before the set ended and was happy to get some CDs to listen to on the way home.
I would 100% see them again. They were fantastic.
SETLIST
- Grand Paradise †
- The Medic @
- I Won’t Drown †
- Lich Prince †
- The Magdalene ♠
- Lambert †
- Heartbeats†
- Night Channels ♠
- Slapstick†
- Gameshark †
- Rory @
- Nearer My God†
† = Nearer My God (2018)
♠ = Dealer (2015)
@ = The Albatross (2013)
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