I was decidely ‘not bothered’ about this gig, boy was I wrong.
Much heavier than I thought they’d be, the ‘phonics’ were slick, together and loud. Ripping into a three song opening they paced the entire gig well, save the slightly too long “I Miss You Now” as the second last song of the encore, and were on stage for about 2 hours, and it’s only really when you hear their ‘best of’ tracks that you realise how many you know, and how consistent they are..
Stand out tracks, the singalong of “Traffic”, the plodding, thumping beat of Mr.Writer, the building, soaring Jealousy (WAV file), and the song that in Kelly’s own words “Kinda took us by surprise” “Handbags and Gladrags”. Accomplished stuff and only real flaw was the lack of crowd interaction, other than a few song intros, and letting the crowd sing the opening to the second verse of “Traffic”.
Main impression was of a small man with a simply phenomenal voice, there sure ain’t no studio tinkering going on when they record their albums as he is note perfect live, and able to improvise with it too. All in all, a much better night than I had anticipated! Go the ‘phonics’!