I am a relative newcomer to this band. It is thanks to my twitter friend Tim (check out his blog here) and my gig buddy Phil that I knew what I did of the band before I went to this concert.
I was basically armed with the knowledge of a few songs from the Pass The Clock compilation which I loved, and that the singer on those tracks was no longer with the band.
Arriving at the venue, we were told by the unusually helpful security man that he would find us in the bar when the doors were open upstairs as we wouldn’t need to queue due only around a 100 tickets being sold. However, judge by the number in there by about the third song there were plenty of people who bought tickets on the door.
Sometimes when you go to see a band that has a fan following you can feel a little isolated but I loved this audience. Everyone respected everyone else’s space and just enjoyed the music.
The band were fabulous. Olivia Sparnenn’s voice and stage presence is awesome. The blend of vocals across the board made for some very pleasurable sounds and the musicianship of the whole band was spot on! The sound was loud, but in no way distorted. 
And Anne-Marie Helder’s flute work was faultless. More bands should had flautists in their line-up I reckon. It works surprising well within a rock band sound.
Confession time now, I’ve had to go searching for a set list to see what was played and the best I could come up with (after a minimal search, I confess) was a list for the night after in Leicester. Thankfully it jogged the memory a bit.
Lots of stuff from the new album Go Well Diamond Heart, all of which was greeted warmly by the appreciative audience. I had bought the CD before the gig began, that’s how confident I was I would enjoy it. Before the interval I was already eager to get it on the mp3 player! I could only afford the ordinary release, but the track from the special edition that they performed did tantalise and I almost considered going over budget and getting that instead. (In the end I was sensible, I have a lot of nights out this week and need to make the pennies stretch!)
The new songs blended in well with the older stuff. As I said I’m a novice with this band, but there seemed no noticeable difference between old and new.
The date of the gig (Friday the 13th) didn’t go unmentioned, especially as before the second song the drum kit had to be gaffer taped into place, or their was a chance the drummer would end up in the audience by the third song. And at one point one of the amps switched itself off!
Highlights – Fading Colours, Go Well Diamond Heart and the “encore” (they never left the stage) of And When The War Is Over and Heroes Never Die.
In all they were onstage from around 8.15 right through to the venue curfew of 11pm, with a 20 minute break somewhere in the middle. That’s around two and half hours of quality entertainment for under £15! Brilliant! Especially as the band appeared to be having just as good a time as the audience. I can think of a few far more expensive concerts I’ve been to that were shorter and didn’t offer any form of audience engagement.
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