A substantial hiatus notwithstanding, the Super Furry Animals are veritable veterans of the scene. Two decades have passed since the cosmic collective first appeared on our radars, and even during the time away the members kept their eye in through various solo projects and collaborations. Hot Press would expect, then, that they’ve grown wise along the way. However, lead guitarist Huw Bunford reports that we’re miles off.
“Our first night back on tour was a total rookie mistake,” Bunf grins. “I’m no spring chicken anymore, and probably can’t do what I used to, but we went way over the top – just completely overdid it. Remember Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force, ‘Every man must know his limitations’? Well, we don’t. We felt absolutely rotten for the next few days. Clearly, we haven’t learned a lot!”
Indeed, getting the group back together after more five years apart exposed just how much had been forgotten. Technology had to come to the rescue, when preparing for a comeback on stage required a trawl through the Super Furry annals.
“We had to watch live clips of ourselves on Youtube,” laughs Huw. “It was great, almost every single song you could care to imagine was up there. You’d say ‘Ah, that’s how it used to go’, and that’s literally how we had to jog our memories. It was sort of surreal – for the first week at least – figuring out what it was we used to do.”
In other ways, though, it was as though nothing had changed.
“Cian put it best, when we first walked in the door to rehearse: he said he recognised the same dust on top of his keyboards. Our technicians had obviously been in before us, and everything from the set-up of the drums to the levels of the amps was exactly as it had been six years ago. Granted, we only did a short tour – just about long enough to feel like we needed a day off! – but it was really good. It was as though we’d never really been away.”
Surely their individual exploits – from Gruff Rhys’ American Interior project to Bunf’s own musical explorations (including an MA in film composition) – had brought a few new ideas into the fold?
“To be honest, we did a very good job of keeping that stuff separate,” he explains. “There might be one or two songs on which I’m trying a new take on things, but even then it’s not radically different. For the most part, we sound just like our fans will remember.”
Plenty to look forward to, then, for loyal fans making the trip to Body & Soul to catch our Celtic cousins, the latest in a long line of appearances the band have made on this side of the Irish Sea.
“We’ve done our fair share of Irish festivals,” Bunf nods. “There was one in a racecourse... and, er, some others. I’m not going to lie, my memory is pretty shady! By 11pm I’d be away with the fairies, every time.”