• on air
• artists
• music news
• gigs & tickets
• breakfast
• o2 academy

• competitions
• festivals
• gig news
• gossip
• releases
• song of the decade
• uk news
• weather
• winter wonderland

X-clusive: Embrace Invade Xfm Following Guerilla Gig

added 27 August 2004 at 09.58

Last night (August 26) saw hundreds of fans and bemused onlookers turn out for an unannounced ‘guerrilla gig’ from Embrace right outside Xfm’s offices in Leicester Square in central London. And Xfm Online was there to bring you an exclusive interview with the band.

Following an anonymous tip-off, Xfm ventured out into Leicester Square last night for an impromptu set from comeback kings Embrace. The band strolled into the square shortly before 6:30pm brandishing instruments and proceeded to form a ring around singer Danny McNamara. Danny then lead the crowd through a half hour, five-song acoustic set standing on a box and singing through an amplifier hanging around his neck.

“Well, as a band, we started all this guerrilla gigging way back,” Danny told Xfm. “And so we decided we’d do another one. I just can’t believe we pulled it off. We’ve wanted to do one in London for ages, so we picked Leicester Square as it’s somewhere everybody knows. And what a buzz, we pulled it off.”

Beginning with ‘All You Good Good People’, the band continued with forthcoming single ‘Gravity’ releasing a hundred white balloons skyward as the song reached its climax. They followed this with a rapturously received ‘Come Back To What You Know’ and new track ‘Wish Em All Away’ causing Danny to announce,

“Who’d have thought we’d still be here doing this, eh? I bet all the rest of these people [in the square] think we’re here for the premiere of The Village. But we’re not – We’re Embrace – The Comeback Kings!”

However disaster struck during ‘Wish Em…’ as Square security arrived to disperse the crowd. In no mood to leave, the crowd urged the band on with chants of “One more tune” and they complied (under the watchful eye of the security) with a rousing version of ‘The Good Will Out’. Just as Her Majesty’s finest began to descend in a panda car.

It was at this point Embrace decided the best way to avoid the Law and the assembled crowds would be to make a dash for the Xfm offices and began hammering on the locked doors to be let in… 

“The police arrived in a car half way through with all their sirens going,” Danny continued as various band members hang out of windows waving to fans, “And they want to interview us afterward but I don’t think they minded really – we were spreading the love, we didn’t want any trouble.

“We’ll be doing some more like this in the near future including one you’ll need your passport for,” he hinted. “We can’t say any more than that, but the best way to find out more is to go to www.embrace.co.uk. It’s so good even I go there to find out what we’re doing next! We have about 15 crazy ideas for every one we use, like we’re trying to do one under water, 10,000 leagues beneath the sea where all the fish are fluorescent. I bet the police’ll still turn up in their little yellow submarine though, won’t they?”

Embrace officially release the single ‘Gravity’ on August 30, followed by their new album ‘Out Of Nothing’ on September 13, both on Independiente Records.

Tagged as Embrace, archive

• send to a friend