Live Review: Foals, Alpine

The queue of people waiting to get in to Palace Theatre tonight snakes around the building's corner, serving as a reminder that tonight's show is sold out. It moves fast though and before too long the crowd are warmed up by the sounds of Alpine, who are busy doing their thing onstage. Their thing, however, is both annoying and good in equal parts. Musically they're a solid band, however, they're let down by the vocals of their co-frontwomen, Phoebe Baker and Lou James.

An impressive light show heralds the arrival of Foals, the band the capacity crowd is here to see, yet the five young British men don't arrive on stage quickly. Guitarist Jimmy Smith is the first to finally appear, playing the lead notes of Prelude, the opening track on their most recent album, Holy Fire. As his bandmates join him, the light show steps up a notch, with the kind of decadence befitting arena-filling, ultra-high-profile types, including a seizure-inducing strobe extravaganza.

Yannis Philippakis is in fine voice tonight. He and the rest of the band are in top form, with not a single bad note to be heard throughout their set. This is testament to their talent and finely honed live skills. Foals delve into all three of their albums; Olympic Airways, My Number, Blue Blood, Late Night, Providence (during which Philippakis launches himself into the crowd) and Spanish Sahara all get an airing tonight, with the band's main set wrapping up with an impressive version of Inhaler.

“That's for you,” announces Philippakis at the end of Hummer, the first encore song, before adding. “Take that as a compliment.” The adoring crowd certainly do, and are thrilled even more when Philippakis decides to take a tour of the top balcony during the band's final song for the night, Two Steps, Twice, leaving Smith, Jack Bevan, Walter Gervers and Edwin Congreave to continue the track while he's absent from the stage. After what seems like an eternity, he makes it to the other side of the balcony, only to climb over the railing and, after ensuring that those below will catch him, he jumps into the crowd. A high point of what has been a highly impressive show.