I SEE, I SEE TOMORROW
Future Islands were an oasis on a cold winter night in Brighton
This is not a concert review. Well, not exactly. And it’s a deviation from my specialist subject of sport. It’s about emotion, it’s about opening up.
It’s about the need to capture and savour precious moments when something surprises, lifts, energises, excites and moves you. When your senses are all sharpened. When there are goosebumps.
If only you could bottle what four men from Baltimore brought to me and a few thousand others on a cold winter night in Brighton, and share it around.
This has been a difficult start to winter all round. For society, for most people I know. it’s been a struggle. These are the days when those here in the UK who say they ‘prefer winter’ baffle me. The short days lacking light have reflected moods and themes, in a country, on a planet that has left optimism in much shorter supply for the past few years. We all have responsibilities and routines. Mine didn’t involve a sudden jaunt to the Sussex coast. But see an opportunity and seize it, don’t wait for tomorrow.
Future Islands are no ordinary group. Finding a way to get to their concert wasn’t easy and needed a leap of faith. Why was it such a relief I made it and why did it have such a profound impact? It’s about emotion, connection and truth.
The group formed in North Carolina a couple of decades back but as I’m neither a music critic nor a historian I’ll spare you their full backstory, because what matters is where they are now, and what matters to me is where they were on that November night.
Their music to me is like the 1980s reimagined even better, with more depth, colour, shape and layers. The synth hooks, soundscapes and production of Gerrit Welmers are majestic, while the drums of Michael Lowry and the bass of William Cashion pulse through their songs like an energy force, a train powering through the countryside as you stare out of the window and see the good things.
I hesitate to compare them to another group, but I hope it’s fair to say Cashion’s bass brings to mind my favourite musician, Peter Hook. There’s a crunch and rhythm that takes you back to his prominence in Joy Division and New Order songs, sometimes pleasingly holding things together, sometimes coming to the fore and demanding your attention.
And then there’s the best frontman I’ve ever seen, Samuel T Herring. In 2014 he found a new audience in circumstances that I gather weren’t all positive for him or the group. His performance on a US chat show during a rendition of their biggest hit ‘Seasons’ went viral, its eccentric vocal and dance elements delighting most people who saw it, but also a bit of social media mocking.
I understand why Herring was uncomfortable with the level of attention it brought. You see Samuel T Herring may be a performer, but his lyrics and emotion are real. When he bears his soul, every time, it’s inspiring. When a man can express his feelings like that, please never, ever underestimate it or take it for granted.
Herring’s connection with the audience in Brighton was not untypical, it’s something I’d seen him do on TV in the sunshine of UK festivals and knew I’d love to experience. But to witness it, to feel it, was an unforgettable privilege.
The Brighton Centre opposite the famous beach on the south coast of the UK is one of the great, often unheralded, UK venues, with room for over four thousand people. It’s large enough to feel significant, yet just about ‘small’ enough to hold the sound and atmosphere.
I’ve never arrived at Brighton station and not descended the steep hill, to the sound of seagulls, with a feeling of excitement. I have no idea if this is a visitor’s prerogative or whether locals feel the same. Rarely have I arrived at night as the locals hit the bars and cafes, their early evenings full of hope and release.
I’d sometimes go to concerts on my own as a young man - none of my friends or girlfriends or indeed anyone I knew had the same taste. There was bemusement at the groups I liked from friends and family - industrial groups like Frontline Assembly and Front 242, quirky ones like Sheep on Drugs and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (though they were massive in about 1993). Thankfully, there was more interest in Depeche Mode, Ride and The Smashing Pumpkins.
The impact of music on my creativity is part of this podcast with the wonderful Carrie Frais, one of the best broadcasters around and someone I’m lucky enough to call a friend, recorded during the pandemic. Please do listen if you have a chance:
https://www.mixcloud.com/carrie-frais/sports-journalist-lee-wellings-is-the-guest-on-the-soundtrack-to-my-life/
On this Friday in Brighton I reconnected with the boy inside, I’m not the best at letting my hair down, I’ve none to spare. I’m hardly shy but have never been the life and soul of the party. To truly let yourself go, to discard the shell of British reserve, is good for life and soul.
It would have been rude not to detour down the deserted beach on the way to the venue, before fish & chips at a little cafe that has precious memories for me. I had a couple of pints at the venue and headed towards the front, close to the stage. When is the last time you hit the front? I always preferred it, and in this case I can’t quite imagine having been anywhere else than close to the ‘Baltimore four’ when they hit the coast.
Support act Laundromat were great, and a very likeable quartet, which helped set the tone. It seemed impossible to me that Future Islands would be anything other that glorious. But they were so much better than that. Exhilarating and powerful doesn’t do them justice.
Samuel T Herring could be seen as an unlikely star. He gives plenty of clues to his insecurities in his lyrics and when speaking to us. So it was heartwarming to see him in a place where he looked and felt at peace, his surefootedness entwined with humility, to form an endearing mix of emotion, pathos and wisdom. This is more than we should maybe expect from a concert and a singer. I’ve seen some simply incredible groups, but none has connected with the audience the way Future Islands did in Brighton.
From the first song, the first glorious synth, there was a surge of euphoria through the crowd, a colourful mix of locals having a perfect night out and those that had travelled to the coast to plug in to the feeling Future Islands bring. The first four songs were just the most amazing thing to experience.
They opened with For Sure, and it became quickly clear that everything was ever better than hoped. Herring’s voice, his quirks, his beseeching, tearful, intense gestures, thumping his hand into his heart, are the kind of things we are used to seeing as a part of performance. But you don’t need to be this close to the stage to see it comes naturally. He is an open book, he is warts and all.
Tonight, For Sure is the ideal start: “I will never keep you from an open door,” sings Herring, pounding every syllable, bringing hands up and pumping back towards him, sharing every word. Everyone is beaming. Actually beaming, It’s like a crowd of Cheshire Cats without the assistance of disco biscuits. Inhibitions shed, people liberated and empowered.
He captures the spirit of my own evening with Hit The Coast, one of the unimposing gems of the most recent As Long as you Are album. It’s just so beautiful, and the Welmers’ subtle layers somehow capture that feeling of needing to clear your head, to look out and see the water.
My favourite Future Islands album is one of my favourite of all time, The Far Field from 2017, with one gorgeous pop song after another. They play one of the highlights of the album, Ran, which Sam tells us wrote itself. I love the feeling. Don’t stop the words when they need to flow.
The difference being his song contains some despair. A few yards from me he relives his pain, crouching, appealing, gripping an imaginary object and holding on, his voice soaring and breaking and asking us to feel, as the bass and drums and synth drive, drive. How we lose control on these roads. How it feels when we fall, when we fold.
Sam hasn’t always been where he is now. I know this because he told us. And there was no more emotional moment than him introducing song four. With the crowd effectively fizzing from the way the concert has started he introduces a song and a feeling unfamiliar to me. But the message of self-esteem is vital in society right now. You are beautiful and you are loved. The song is Plastic Beach, from their most recent album.
Spend a lifetime in the mirror, picking apart what I couldn’t change.
He tells us how he came to accept who he is and how he looks by realizing that his features are made up the people he loves, his family. It’s almost impossible to convey just how compelling and real his sentiments feel, to my ‘Londoner’s ears’ his speaking voice has more than a touch of Elvis (really) in timbre and intonation, his story telling on stage and through his music is as good as it gets. And in combination with the sonic gifts of his bandmates, Future Islands should never be underestimated .
I entranced by the story he tells in Plastic Beach, a song that draws you in and lifts you up from the start and refuses to release its emotional grip:
“When I took the time to tell you, you took the time to listen to me too."
Now I see, I see tomorrow.”
If there’s a better lyric for the year 2022 I am not aware of it. The self-doubt and anxieties that grip so many, the beauty, talent, intelligence, empathy and spirit within suppressed by their own self-doubt. I pray the spirit of this song surges through more people, those I know and love and those I’ve never met.
“I see, I see tomorrow what you saw today.”
It’s a simple message and yet profoundly needed. And when it’s delivered by a man sharing how he feels, what he is learned, who he is and how he found a better place, its power is life-affirming. It is story telling at its finest. And that’s what I seek to achieve too.
As I said, this is not really a concert review.
And you know what, everything really is going to be alright. If you read this and you’re struggling, please try and share how you feel. It’s vital. The greatest gift I/we can offer is to listen and understand.
Thank you Sam. Thank you Future Islands. We see, we see tomorrow.
Love Lee x
For the record, here’s my Future Islands playlist of current favourite songs, taken mainly from the sublime The Far Fields and As Long as You Are albums, and starting with a standalone single from this year, the majestic King of Sweden:
King of Sweden
Aladdin
Cave
Ran
A Dream of You and Me
For Sure
The Painter
Plastic Beach
Hit The Coast
North Star
Time on Her Side
Seasons (Waiting on You)
Lee Wellings is a UK-based author, broadcaster and film maker specialising in sport and ethics. He has worked on and off screen at the BBC, ITN, Sky News covering major sports news stories across the globe.
His first book The Dilly Dong Bell (a wake up call for sport) is available from www.ProjectisPublishing.com.
Media enquiries for analysis including TV and public speaking direct to leewellings@hotmail.com
Happy Christmas and a great 2023 David and huge thanks for your support x
What an evocative article. You captured perfectly the importance of live music, and having that shared, common experience of actually being there.
Having spent a gig-deprived lockdown, it has been so wonderful to get out and about to gigs again and just to share that atmosphere with thousands of others who are all there for the same thing.
So many things that I could pick up on in your piece, but I will limit myself: see an opportunity and seize it. For sure. You might have stayed home that night and had a perfectly pleasant evening, but...
I live in rural Wales, so going to any gig is a commitment, but I rarely return home disappointed.
Also the importance of the venue. So many are just not up to scratch. I am delighted to be going to a Depeche Mode gig next year, BUT, it's at Twickenham of all places, so I am already managing my expectations downwards.
Thank you for sharing your experience, which is probably the next best thing to being there. Following you on Twitter, I also know that your music taste is impeccable (nearly)!
Have a great Christmas and here's to all the gigs coming up in 2022.