Foster the People at Somerset House, gig review: Proving they're more than just the one song

Band look less than enthusiastic when they play their biggest hit, but the energy for the rest of their set shows them at their best

(Rex)

“FIFA song! FIFA song! FIFA song!” This was the chant that greeted the end of several tracks Foster the People played back at Reading Festival 2012. It’s a funny chant, only because it’s just so stupid.

Is there a more soul-crushing chant for a band to hear repeated relentlessly in their direction? “Have our popular songs turned into monsters?” the band may have asked themselves. Now, five years later and with their third record Sacred Hearts Club out next week, Foster the People are doing everything they can to move away from that image, from “Pumped Up Kicks”.

Take “Loyal Like Syd & Nancy”, a new track from SHC and their new live set-opener, as an example: full of energy, like three different songs merged together. It’s heaving with ideas, but as the track starts to grow on you, it moves onto something else and never truly fleshes one good idea out.

As “LLS&N” opens the sold-out gig at London’s open-air Somerset House, with Foster the People looking thrilled to play it, the track receives a mute response from the crowd. The exact reverse happens when ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ is played. The crowd scream as its distinctive bass line kicks in. They sing every word of the earworm four-bar chorus. Everyone is dancing. Meanwhile, Foster the People look like they’d rather be doing absolutely anything other than playing that song again. The band look bored. Fed-up, even. It’s bizarre to watch.

“Sit Next To Me”, debuted three hours earlier, slotted into the set like it had been there for years, while “Are You What You Want to Be?” is given an extended instrumental, (controlled by Foster who looked like he was channelling JK Simmons-at-the-end-of-Whiplash-level intensity as he goaded each band member on), that stretches the song to almost seven minutes long.

The same can be said of the gig’s highlight, “Miss You”, which features loud, pounding drums, squealing synths and Mark Foster’s strutting, shifting dance moves. This is when Foster the People are at their best.