Mostly Autumn, The Y Theatre, Leicester
I’ve not been to this venue before; like Gloucester Guildhall and Bury Met it’s a provincial theatre rather than a rock club. I heard it described as a ‘mini York GOH’, which isn’t a bad description; quite a large balcony (which was pretty full), but standing downstairs.
Having seen the band nineteen times now, it’s getting increasingly difficult to find anything new to say about them, except that the new lineup was well and truly gelled now, and as I’d come to expect, this was a pretty tight and impassioned performance. There’s something wrong with the British music scene when a band this good isn’t playing to much bigger audiences.
The setlist was much the same as Gloucester, except they didn’t play ”Second Hand”, and moved “Above the Blue” to the first encore. High spots were an impassioned “Unoriginal Sin”, a great “Simple Ways” (lovely to have that back in the setlist again), and a really strong version of “Carpe Diem”. With the sad news from last Sunday, “Tearing at the Faerytale”, and “Heroes Never Die” (dedicated tonight to Howard) carried a very strong emotional resonance indeed.
Only another four days, and I see them again, at the Limelight club in Crewe.
