Few gigs have been as eagerly anticipated as this homecoming show by Oxford's hottest new band.

And few shows have so comprehensively lived up to expectation.

Foals had put a vast amount of effort into planning their show at the Academy - their biggest ever in the city. And, following the technical problems which scuppered their gig upstairs, earlier this year, it wasn't surprising.

The band's Edwin Congreave had told this paper before the show that they were eager to play a great gig, worthy of their meteoric rise to fame, while not appearing 'up themselves'.

On both counts they succeeded.

Given their choice of support, that's no mean feat.

Old friends Youthmovies whipped the glow-stick waving front rows into a frenzy with a white hot set, which was all chiming guitars, broken vocals and piercing blasts of brass. It was exhausting and exhilarating to watch, and must have been a nightmare to follow.

But, chucking out a couple of their biggest belters - French Open and Cassius early doors meant the crowd never really caught their breath.

This was Foals at their best - all fizzing guitars, sending out interwoven pulses of discordant sound against a towering wall of percussion. Yannis spun around like a rat on a hotplate, utterly absorbed in the sonic storm he was stoking.

That they were this tight is all the more remarkable considering drummer Jack's ongoing illness after food poisoning the previous day - an affliction violent enough to have forced his absence from a Jo Whiley Live Lounge session on Radio 1 the previous day, and the cancellation of their in Norwich.

The band gradually moved into their new material from debut album Antidotes, which revealed a darker, more studied, less frenzied side.

Highpoint came with the appointment of a two-man brass section, featuring Sam from Youthmovies, adding a further, smoother, dimension to an already rich cocktail.

It showed two very different sides of a band very much in the ascendent, who can relax knowing they have not only won over an admiring world, but also their harshest critics - their long-time fans at home.

In anthem Hummer they sing: "Have we come to far to get home?" The answer, on tonight's performance, is an emphatic 'no'!

5:03pm Monday 17th March 2008

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