The Bluetones
Rather disappointingly for yours truly this is the first time that I have seen The Bluetones, since their debut album tour back in 1996! Time has it feels just quite literally flown by, it just seems that every time that they ventured into the fine City since then, I was either on holiday, away with work or celebrating a birthday with a family member. Anyway, tonight is the night to reacquaint with a band that I fell in love with when said album, Expecting To Fly was first released and to my mind it’s still a top three album at the very least from that particular decade.
But tonight, it’s the return of Return To The Last Chance Saloon, (their second album) on its 25th year anniversary. Back in 1998 it went to number ten in the album chart and also earned them a gold disc.
Whilst it may not have hit the same dizzy number one and platinum disc heights of its predecessor, its still a cracking album and is certainly well worth getting the band back on road again to my mind and judging by the very large crowd in attendance this evening, the punters feel exactly the same way.
They play it in its entirety and in sequential order. Coming on to the wonderful opener, Toon Blooze. The thoroughly charming man, Mark Morriss enters the stage at its close as it seamlessly links into Unpainted Arizona and my goodness, he is sounding absolutely fabulous from the off, his voice is faultless throughout the evening, unlike many frontmen from his generation the vocal chords are sounding well waxed. In addition, he still looks as youthful as ever and extremely resplendent in his tuxedo (as do the rest of the band) with his blue ruched frilly shirt. Visually they are also looking really great and based on this outing there is plenty of life in Hounslow’s finest still to come.
He admits that some of the songs are a bit hard going, certainly on the vocal chords, but he does a great job as do they all in playing the album note perfect, its given the full respect that it deserves by them and the audience too. One of the things that I first really got with The Bluetones is the detail and intensity that they get across in their music in the more mellow tempo songs. It’s really going very well, and everyone is you can just tell really enjoying the show.
The tracks keep on coming Solomon Bites The Worm, 4-Day Weekend all follow on until its closing track, Broken Starr, there is not a duff track on the album. They breathe newfound energy into it and give it fresh legs. Back in the day, when according to MM we were all young and cool!? This album was always going to live in the shadow of their first record such was its class and perfection, but do you know what the past few days it’s this classic Bluetones album that I cannot stop playing, I feel like I am hearing things that I had maybe never heard, or maybe really appreciated before.
I am certainly feeling buoyed up by the band once again, so let’s hope that work, birthdays and any other shenanigans that may come my way don’t get in the way next time that they are around.
For the encore, we do of course get treated to the amazing, Bluetonic, Slight Return and Marble Head Johnson, along with an incredible cover version of Squeeze’s Pulling Mussels From A Shell.
See you next time for a little bit more blue tonic.
