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Foals wins Vegas over with strong showing

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Yannis Philippakis of Foals, live at Brooklyn Bowl.
Erik Kabik

Four stars

FOALS April 24, Brooklyn Bowl.

Nothing says dull like a heavy-rotation band on alternative/modern-rock radio. Foals, however, is an exception—and, as evidenced Sunday at Brooklyn Bowl, a force to be reckoned with.

The British alt-rock quintet seems to employ a three-pronged strategy for levelling its audience: 1. Unleash thick-riffed Led Zeppelin and T. Rex urges, often recontextualized within the band’s math-y compositional structure (see vampy, roaring “Inhaler”); 2. Take a beat, channel inner Brian Eno and guide listeners through more cerebral and nuanced explorations (gorgeous headswimmers “Spanish Sahara” and “A Knife in the Ocean”); and 3. Seamlessly merge the two aesthetics, tweak passages, intensify climaxes, stretch endings and ultimately blow both minds and the venue roof (“Providence,” “Two Steps, Twice”).

Each local Foals appearance has been a cherry bomb of a show, but unlike its 2008 Vegas debut at Beauty Bar and 2013 gig at House of Blues, this one actually had a substantial throng to witness it. For Sunday’s 1,000-strong concert, there was actually a crowd dense enough to catch singer/guitarist Yannis Philippakis when he dove into the crowd (on multiple occasions, with his guitar). Visiting and winning over mid-market cities, then returning to draw a crowd bigger than the last—this is what a British band must do to successfully develop a fanbase in the States.

It doesn’t hurt that Foals just nabbed its first No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Radio chart with “Mountain at My Gates.” If the big cheers welcoming that tune—along with previous hit singles “Inhaler” and buoyant pop-rocker “My Number”—suggested the audience was more populated by fair-weather fans than diehards, it was gratifying to hear even louder roars after lesser-known tracks like “Snake Oil” and “Red Socks Pugie.” Philippakis praised the crowd more than once, even acknowledging its audible embrace of opening band Kiev, which might not have exhibited the same melodic strengths as the headliner, but nonetheless demonstrated craftsmanship and—especially during the spirited “Loot Recovered”—purpose in its rhythmic, genre-impartial explorations. We should be hearing bands like these more often on the airwaves.

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