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Saturday, 13 October, 2001, 22:00 GMT 23:00 UK
Still Furry after all these years
Singer Gruff Rhys impresses with actions, not words
By BBC News Online's Robert Andrews
The Super Furry Animals dressing room in the bowels of Cardiff International Arena is a flurry of activity. Roadies are collecting equipment, music is coming from the stage beyond, a PR person is keeping her distance.
It worked spectacularly well. The Furries went a long way and have come home at the end of the UK leg of a tour promoting new album, Rings Around The World. Not to read too much into that homecoming - Wales, says drummer Dafydd Ieuan, sat in a plush sofa surrounded by mirrors, is merely "where I'm from." Homeward bound "I'd be proud to come from anywhere," he tells BBC News Online. "It's like having a nose. "It doesn't matter where you go - you take a bit with you and pick up more on your way." Ieuan laments the split of friends Catatonia, but lives in London and has missed the entire "Cool Cymru" period.
"This is probably the biggest gig we can do at the moment," adds Ieuan. "It needs to be quite intense. "It's been the fullest, biggest, loudest multimedia extravaganza of a tour we've had so far." "We've got films and visuals with us. We brought out a DVD so we are showing them live and cutting them up."
Tour crowds have witnessed the visual assault on 17 screens scattered around the stage, triggered by music coming from the band. The band has reservations about forcing visuals on viewers, as with traditional music videos, so optional DVD animations are the order of the day. International language In 1999, singer Gruff Rhys - who has scuttled about the dressing room but declined to sit - branded Prime Minister Tony Blair a "war criminal" and a "mass murderer" over NATO bombings in the former Yugoslavia. It is something the band re-iterate as new strikes take place on terrorist targets in Afghanistan.
"What happened in New York was tragic - I had friends there and I didn't know if they were alive. "I get the feeling they are bombing it to appease public opinion back home. It scares me." Digital design None of the Furries are scared by modern digital music and distribution, however. The Super Furries' 1999 CIA gig was webcast around the world but, says Cian, the band decided not to repeat the feat until internet speeds pick up.
"We try to embrace it and don't understand why more people don't. Even controversial internet music software Napster is warmly welcomed as "superb." "Our last four albums were hardly available in mainland Europe and South America - they're better free than not at all," adds Ieuan. "There are 17-year-old computer geeks out there who know so much more than the people who run the companies - they have to play catch up." Techno lust will come in handy - the Super Furry Animals tour heads for Japan on 14 October. |
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13 Oct 01 | Entertainment
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