Lightning Seeds & Casino
A marvellous, sugar coated iceberg of a gig.
The support tonight were Casino. Hailing from Liverpool, their sound felt like it came from an era long ago, but at the same time they sound fresh and original. Funky northern soul tunes fronted by Dillon Kelly on vocals. The highlight was their rendition of their latest release Heaven. I had not heard of Casino before tonight, but they commanded the attention of the crowd of early gig-attendees (which was probably most of us judging by the queue waiting for the doors to open). An enjoyable set and I will certainly watch out for them in the future.
The Lightning Seeds are currently touring their greatest hits, in conjunction with the release of their latest compilation, Tomorrow’s Here Today which is celebrating 35 Years of the Lightning Seeds, (surely this can’t be so... but looking at (most) of the people around me, regretfully I suspect it is). However, although the audience may be a bit longer in the tooth now, we still remember all the words to these stonking indie pop tunes of our younger days, and we can still bop (even if my sister who joined me for the show now can’t feel three of her toes – well if you pogo at 50 what do you expect?)
This was a tremendous gig – I was expecting it to be good, but it was far better than that. I wasn’t alone, the audience sang every line to every song and a lady in front of me was literally having the best day of her life – which was a joy to behold.
Ian Broudie may be singing a semitone or two below what he used to, but he’s still got that distinctive voice we all know and love, Martyn Campbell is on bass, Jim Sharrock (drums), Adele Emmas (keyboards) and OMG – I feel old again…Riley Broudie (rhythm guitar), the original inspiration for The Life of Riley before he was even born, is the band’s manager and also a father in waiting himself.
There were all the hits you would expect in their set – highlights for me were You Showed Me, which drifted into Imagine and then into an indie-dance vibe where Broudie showed off his prowess as a guitarist alongside the housey-piano of Emmas, and my personal fave Sugar-Coated Iceberg
Broudie didn’t have much chat between songs, but he gave a moving tribute to the late Terry Hall with whom he co-wrote Sense and When Emily Smiles.
The encore ended with Three Lions – it’s a crowd pleaser, although I think there are better tunes to end on. Nevertheless, it was a marvellous gig, amongst a friendly audience who were there to enjoy themselves… and wonder where that last 35 years went…
