Review
Fossil Fools, Riff's Bar, 5th March 2011

Ed Percival - vocalist and guitar player for the XTC tribute band Fossil Fools - described Saturday night’s audience at Riffs as ‘perfectly formed‘. He could equally have applied this description to his own band as they thrashed their way through 24 classic and less well-known XTC tracks, demonstrating both the intensely physical and percussive nature of their work, not to mention the incredible diversity.

What a pity more weren’t there to see this enthusiastic and successful tribute to Swindon’s own!

Half a dozen classic tracks including ‘Ball and Chain’ and ‘This is Pop?’ were followed by the whole of the Black Sea album. The band has taken the opportunity of the thirtieth anniversary of its release to celebrate it, with the stand-out track ‘Generals and Majors’ providing a nostalgic high-octane blast from the past. Ed (formerly of tribute band X-StatiC), has done well to recruit Dan who plays keyboard, guitar and shares vocals. Dan’s voice on some of the tracks sounds very similar to Andy Partridge’s - close your eyes and you could be back in the early eighties!

Of course, playing XTC music without a decent percussive element would be musical suicide, and Terry, ably assisted by Matt on bass, provide the haunting and powerful beats that are the heart of the group. Terry’s extended introduction to Making Plans for Nigel during the encore may have been brought about by Ed’s accidental breakage of a guitar string, but was nevertheless sublime! His drumming, clearly fuelled by a massive enthusiasm for the music, never failed once to be inspired throughout the evening.

Other stand out tracks included ‘Towers of London’, a brave effort at the less than accessible ‘Travels of Nihilon’ which the guys should be commended for attempting, and ’Senses Working Overtime’. It was a sterling performance and the band’s two years at finding the right members and rehearsing have clearly paid off. This is a much tighter unit than X-StatiC, much more professionally sounding and playing with a breadth and depth across XTC’s output that will give any newcomer a clear idea of what they were all about. The small but perfectly formed audience alluded to, all seemed to be having a good time. People were mouthing the words, sometimes singing along, dancing and generally reminiscing. Neither were there only those who would have seen the original band, several people were fairly young and seemed equally to be enjoying the lively show.

Fossil Fools are returning to Swindon on July 9th to play the Vic. I urge anyone interested in live music played well to put the date in their diaries!

Melanie Hussey, Swindon Advertiser

Photos by Kay Brown