Fleet Foxes at Zepp Diver City, January 18th 2018


I heard the first Fleet Foxes album soon after being released and was completely blown away. Mojo Magazine named it -along their first EP- album of the year. The song’s strengths were obvious from first listen. Harmonies inspired by the best bands from the sixties and complex melodies matured way beyond the early twenties of the band members, were qualities that resulted in what became one of the best albums of the first decade of the 21st Century.

In the span of the following nine years they released another two albums, with six in between the second and the third. They added more elaborated arrangements and production explorations to their palette. They evolved into one of the biggest bands in the planet. When I first saw them they were not even an opening band, they were billed third after MGMT and Alela Diane. This time I seeing them as the sole act at a practically sold out venue in Tokyo.

With a huge screen behind them projecting colors as in their “Third of May / Odaigahara” video, they started the show with the first two songs from their latest album and it’s a testimony to their evolution the fact that the translation to a live setting is not an easy task. Their new album is build on layers of sound that reveal its complexity with repeated listens; Crack-Up is to me the definition of a grower. I guess the same applies to the live show. The opening ended up being not as powerful as it could’ve been. I blame the venue as well, at times the sound was, to my ears, muffled. Months of touring around the world could take a toll and at some points the lead singer had difficulties hitting those notes; but they were just getting started.

They closed this first part of the set with the last song from Helplessness Blues and after a brief pause for stage banter, they moved on to some of the crowd pleasers, specifically White Winter Hymnal. They started cooking at this point and sounded solid from then on. The setlist flows organically with seamless transitions between songs, they could go from some of their first songs to some of their latest ones in an instant and it will be as smooth as it could be. Don’t get me wrong, they’re an amazing live band.

Following Fool’s Errand, from their latest, I was happy to hear He Doesn’t Know Why. That song always puts me in a good mood and it was the one that shocked me the most years ago when thinking that a twenty year old could write that. They had a special treat planned for the Japanese audiences. In honor of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s birthday they played a cover of YMO’s Behind the Mask. The guitar player Skyler Skjelset took the vocoder lead vocals on that one. Afterwards Robin Pecknold joked that the pitch was perfect but his voice sounded really weird.

The last part of the main set went from Mykonos, a song from their first EP, to the more epic sounding songs from their latest two albums. It was relentless. The quality of their songwriting is undeniable. That last part of the show capsuled their evolution from an intimate sound to a more ambitious one and it was a pleasure to see and hear.


They returned for an encore with Robin Pecknold performing a solo rendition of Oliver James and closing with Helplessness Blues a song that’s, in my opinion, the perfect balance between the old and the new Fleet Foxes and was the perfect choice for ending an hour and forty five minutes showcase of excellent tunes. In reality there’s no such thing as an old and new Fleet Foxes in the sense there’s a good, bad or better one. It’s all good and I can’t wait to hear what’s next. I hope to catch them on their next tour.



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