Fleet Foxes, Pyramid Stage, Glastonbury, June 26th
Fleet Foxes, Pyramid Stage, Glastonbury, June 26th
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Saturday, 27, Jun 2009 01:08
By Lewis Bazley.
"It's such a pleasure to be terrified in front of you right now," joked a shy Robin Pecknold as Fleet Foxes drenched the Glastonbury crowd in sunshine and soaring harmonies in a pitch-perfect Pyramid Stage set.
But while the sizeable audience were too chatty for Seattle's finest's inter-song banter to properly translate, there was no sign of the nerves of which Pecknold had smirked.
The backwoods blues of White Winter Hymnal and Sun It Rises were made to listen to under blazing sun and as the clouds parted to cast the first rays of the afternoon over the Pyramid Stage arena, and Mykonos glided through the field, you understood why Fleet Foxes have been labelled an epochal American band.
Their outstanding beards might suggest they've been helicoptered in from a strenuous session of huntin' and killin' and their Beach Boys-meets-CSNY ambience is anything but new.
But just as Friendly Fires proved themselves one of the most exhilarating live acts around with a salsa-tinged Other Stage set, their alliterative cousins Fleet Foxes raised the bar with a performance of consummate professionalism, wondrous musicianship and a self-effacing humour that charmed the sweating masses.