Fans of Funeral for a Friend (FFAF) have been waiting for years and even the $85 early bird price tag (considered pricey for younger FAFF friends) could not prevent them from being there. On Sep 8, FFAF finally stormed the city with a rock concert where head-banging vocals were aplenty and moshing a must.

500 or so fans, with the youngest at a tender age of 10 and the oldest at an admirable age of 50, crammed into the tiny Glass Pavilion at Far East Square. An air guitar contest officiated by 98.7FM’s Daniel Ong and Young was initiated as a warm up before FAFF’s appearance. While they tried bravely to entertain the crowd, the strained clamps gave way to catcalls and a few expletives. But who could blame them? As hard as the air guitar contestants tried, nothing can be cooler than FAFF.

The fans could not contain themselves as final sound checks for FFAF began. In fact, they were so excited that one who does not know what the band looks like might have mistaken the sound check guys for FAFF themselves. With anticipation thick in the air, the lights dimmed as the refrains of “We are the Champions” by Queen blasted from the 4 huge speakers. Matt, Darren, Gareth, Ryan and Kris marched on stage and broke into the intro of “Into Oblivion (Reunion)”.

There’s no stopping the crowd after they’ve waited for so long. They went wild and the young, old, skinny or no skinny jeans raised their voices and started jumping with their arms up in the air.

By the time the band started on “Juneau”, from the band’s debut album, Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation, some die-hard fans had whipped their shirts off and started body surfing. Many were caught up in the moment and for lack of better things, hurled water bottles, shoes and even concert flyers over their heads.

An epitome of organised chaos, beefy security guards kept a look-out for unruly behaviour. But the men-in-black became quite unnecessary since the young rockers, though busy ricocheting off each other in a trance, were surprisingly conscientious about picking up those who fell down.

That aside, FFAF had, without question, given the audience a great time. The seasoned performers were like Energizer bunnies flipping all over the miniscule stage and leaping onto speakers just so they could get that much closer to their fans.

Matt who was most formally dressed, in a white button shirt no less, dedicated “The End of Nothing” to Singapore and that proved to be the zenith of the performance with 3 people launching themselves up into the crowd for a round of sweaty body surfing.

Each time they took a break (Kris had to change his guitar twice), Matt, lead singer and crowd pleaser that he is, remembered to thank the audience and flatter them with compliments like “Singapore’s officially the loudest crowd!”

The fans lapped it up and fed off the band’s energy so much that they didn’t really seem to care that the acoustics didn’t do much justice to Darren’s amazing guitar riffs and Matt’s otherwise stunning vocals.

But the roaring crowd was subdued when Matt told the audience to “raise 2 fingers” while they sang the 12th song, “History”. Lighters lit up the dark pavilion and those without lighters used their mobile phones, swaying to the haunting notes in memory of the miners who died in Wales from 1984 to 1985.

The repertoire for their maiden performance in Singapore included songs from Tales Don’t Tell Themselves interspersed with numbers from the older albums but it was of no consequence which album the songs came from because whether it was “Roses for the Dead” or “The Great Wide Open”, the crowd never grew tired of screaming the lyrics they’ve so lovingly memorised.

When UrbanWire spoke to Kris, Darren and Ryan a day before the concert, the well-mannered Welshmen had professed their excitement at finally being able to perform here and had explained their transition from screaming vocals to mellower tunes as a “natural progression”. They also said that the change was “not a conscious effort”.

Kris said that “screaming vocals had to be something you feel passionate about” and that should a song not demand for that, they wouldn’t scream “for the sake of screaming”.

When asked if the band was afraid of losing fans, Ryan said that FFAF does what it feels is right. “We play 200 shows a year, so you’ll need to play something you believe in. It’ll be dishonest if we’re just playing to please our fans,” he said.

Ryan also talked about how hard it was having to leave his family to tour now that he has a son but the 3 were adamant when they said that “touring’s much better than you imagine” because the “stage is where all the excitement happens”.

Their honest and earnest approach certainly works because if the reaction from the audience at the concert was anything to go by, FFAF still has a hard as metal fan base. A resounding “We want more! We want more!” came from the fans who didn’t want their idols to leave the stage after the final strains of “Streetcar”.

The 75 minutes, 15-song concert came to a close when the band (Matt sans shoes) returned and performed “Escape Artists Never Die”. Before the lights went off, the band handed out guitar picks, towels soaked with their sweat and a pair of Darren’s red boxers. Matt then proceeded to fling himself into the crowd, to the consternation of the security guards, and screamed, “Good night Singapore, we’ll see you soon!”

And with all that we’ve got, we certainly hope to see them back soon.