| Soundwave Festival 2011 - FOXY SHAZAM |
| Written by Sarah Mudgway |
| Sunday, 20 March 2011 23:55 |
 If I had to sum up FOXY SHAZAM’s set in four words: HIGHLIGHT. OF. THE. DAY. The greatest thing about festivals like Soundwave is the opportunity to hear and see bands that otherwise you may have skipped... and honestly, I am forever in debt to Soundwave for bringing the joy and wonder of Foxy Shazam into my life. Having looked them up on Youtube earlier this year after thinking "that singer has a great ‘stache, and their band name is Foxy Shazam... what can go wrong?" - I immediately was transfixed by the dance moves and ridiculously powerful voice of singer and frontman Eric Nally. However as I learned about thirty seconds into their set – the videos are nothing in comparison to it occurring right in front of your eyes. Eric Nally’s flamboyant and charismatic on-stage persona came to life as soon as the band walked on stage, commenting to the audience "we are so dark... so dark you’ll think your eyes are closed" before launching into set opener 'Yes, Yes, Yes!'. A true frontman in every sense of the word, Nally’s strength in vocals (he’s been described as a modern day Freddie Mercury) never once waivered, not even when he would throw his body to the floor or roll his way across the stage. After all, it is his charmingly spastic dance moves, matched with his tiny frame, his constant need to throw his microphone on the ground and his witty banter that made him stand out as one of the most entertaining frontmen of the entire festival, and perhaps current music scene. The frontman once said: "It’s a whole lot easier to understand a sound when you can see what the sound looks like..." - and this definitely rings true for Foxy Shazam. The songs are great, but the performance makes them so much better.  While my eyes could never stray far from his charisma, it was hard to ignore the rest of the band. Keyboardist Schuyler Vaughn White looked like some sort of evil priest with a giant beard, printed shirt, and a scarf wrapped around his head. Back-up vocalist and brass player Alex Nauth was the sidekick to Nally’s antics, providing a perfect accompaniment of back-up vocals and subtle yet contagious dance moves, while guitarist Loren Daniel Turner managed to play a great guitar solo with Nally firmly seated on his shoulders. With so much happening on-stage between songs – such as Eric Nally lighting up five or so cigarettes, smoking them and then eating them, or his stories of working in a thrift store – it’s easy to forget to mention that they actually played songs inbetween their antics. Their forty-minute set featured songs primarily off their self-titled release with personal highlights being ‘Oh Lord’, ‘Count Me Out’, ‘Bye Bye Symphony’, and the contagious ‘Killing It’ in which Nally and White’s side-to-side-then-spin-around dance move caught on with members of the audience, creating what was the most surreal and smile-inducing performance of the day. Ending their set with an acapella version of ‘Evil Thoughts’, Eric Nally offered up one final thought before leaving the stage: "I wish I had a mirror on stage, so I could watch myself sing..." Perfect. |
