There are a few bands that I can clearly say I wouldn’t have discovered had it not been for my small group of Internet friends across the world. Frightened Rabbit is one of those bands. As I found out about the band’s U.S. tour, my friend Susie got so excited for me that I thought she might even find her way here to see them (she lives in Scotland, and has seen them close to 30 times; even from that, you can assess her enthusiasm). So for fear of retribution, I made sure that I’d be able to see Frightened Rabbit when they came to Seattle. It was a busy weekend, yes. A good friend of mine was getting married and it’s nearing the end of spring quarter, but I wasn’t about to let Susie or myself down for not seeing my favorite Scotsmen (well, my favorite Scottish band).
As Frightened Rabbit sold out Neumo’s, I was expecting a large crowd. Thankfully, a large portion of the ticket holders was over 21, so the balcony was crowded, not the floor. The first of the opening bands, Our Brother The Native came out on stage a little after 9, and played a keen half-hour set of experimental indie rock. Lead singer Josh Bertram stood at one synthesizer with a bass around his neck, and next to him on the floor was a wooden board with multiple small soundboards. In fact, Ian Fulcher, who they list on their Myspace page as “Trumpet/Atmospherical Recontextualizing,” stayed on the floor during the entire set, navigating around the – more or less – switchboard of sound. That intermixed with extended hum of the trumpet made for quite an interesting sound. Our Brother The Native had a bit of the Animal Collective appeal, finding innovative ways to mix different instruments right on stage along with Bertram’s spirited howl. It was shoegaze with a bit of pep.
After Our Brother The Native left the stage, roadies came out to move around the drum set and the multiple synthesizers to make room for the second band, Maps & Atlases. I was only expecting one opening band that night, as Maps & Atlases was the only opener listed online, but I still had no prior knowledge of the band. Even though Neumo’s was in desperate need of a cool cross draft, I thoroughly enjoyed Maps & Atlases and their half hour set of songs from their self-titled debut as well as their new album Perch Patchwork. 
Behind the mop of beard came this insane voice from lead singer Dave Davison. I swear he was using a voice changer. Nope, all his voice. It was crazy. He sounded like a cross between Caleb Followill and George Strait, but with more facial hair. And his voice complimented their math rock sound perfectly, mixing the quirky sharp tone of Davison’s voice with whimsical and complex instrumentation.
By now, I could smell the anticipation – man’s body odor and an incredibly sickly sweet scent of cannabis. However, I had maneuvered myself to a better vantage point to take pictures from, so I was happy. Up until this point, the speakers had been playing indistinguishable late-90s rock, but by the second intermission, the silence was greeted with Fleetwood Mac’s greatest hits. Seriously. And people sang along with Stevie Nicks for a good twenty minutes while more roadies readied the stage for Frightened Rabbit.
“Don’t stop, thinkin’ about tomorrow. Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here! It’ll be, better than before. Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone!” What? Who doesn’t love Stevie Nicks?
I may only be twenty years old, but my mom blasted Fleetwood Mac on the stereo when I was a kid. There was actually a girl standing next to me who most certainly knew all the words to the familiar sounds being played over the loudspeaker.
But then the nostalgia-fest ended and we finally got to see the band we came to see. Now I can truly see why Susie has been Frightened Rabbit a good 27 or so times. They’re so good live. It’d be hard to find a more passionate lead singer than Scott Hutchison. By the time they started playing “The Twist,” which was only a few or so songs in, Hutchison’s shirt was noticeably wet, and every time he’d jolt around the stage, you could see the sweat droplets fly off his forehead. But that also could have been the lack of ventilation. What can I say? It was hot. The band played songs from throughout their catalogue, including “Square 9” off Sing The Greys, “Old Old Fashioned,” “The Modern Leper” and “Extrasupervery” off The Midnight Organ Fight, and “Skip the Youth,” “Swim Until Your Can’t See Land,” and “The Loneliness and the Scream” off their new album The Winter of Mixed Drinks. But those weren’t all the songs that they played. I was too slow in grabbing the set list off Andy Monaghan’s synthesizer. This tall guy beat me to it.
Possibly my favorite part of the night, apart from the encore, was during “The Loneliness and the Scream,” where Hutchison threw his hands up during the interlude within the song, and everyone in the audience started jumping, clapping joyously and singing along to the “oh-wah-oh-wohs” for a solid minute and a half. That’s part of the reason why I was glad Frightened Rabbit played songs from all their albums. The Winter of Mixed Drinks is so cheerful that I feel like the whole show would have been too up. We needed the heartbreaking songs off The Midnight Organ Fight to make the ups more powerful. But, actually, the most memorable moments came during the encore, when Hutchison walked out on stage after a couple minutes of applause with only his acoustic guitar and played a touching version of “Poke,” that honestly almost brought me to tears. Up until then the tiny room had been filled with noise, but when he stood up their with that one spotlight, the crowd was silent, which made it all that more beautiful. Following “Poke,” we got to dance again with “Living In Colour,” as Hutchison proclaimed, “this one’s for you guys.” It was a nice high to end on, but it actually wasn’t the end. As it was nearing midnight, Hutchison stared up to the unseen Neumo’s employee above our heads in the rafters and held up one finger. “One more,” he said.
And to my delight, they jumped right into “Keep Yourself Warm,” which could be my favorite Frightened Rabbit song, at least my favorite off The Midnight Organ Fight. Hutchison’s shirt was drenched at this point, but I’m pretty sure with all the energy he dispelled during that song he would have drenched the shirt all over again. If I could come up with a different word for epic – oh wait, glorious – glorious is the word I’d use to describe that final song. It’s already a moving song, but when you’re shoved in a hot and smelly itty-bitty club with hundreds of people who love it as much as you do, it’s infinitely more moving. On the surface, the song is so unbelievably depressing, but it didn’t take a genius to see how much the people around me loved that song, and loved Frightened Rabbit. Plus, it’s a lot more fun to sing along to a song that says “fucking” multiple times.
Now I don’t think I’ll ever see Frightened Rabbit as many times as Susie has, mainly because of the entirety of the United States and that big ocean separating the U.S. and the U.K., but if I had the ability to, I’d sure try.
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