Therapy?
Therapy? return to The Waterfront in support of their 14th album Disquiet.
Where would we be without the Waterfront? It gets its fair share of knocks, but sometimes it is the ideal venue and without it the Norwich music scene would be much poorer. Case in point, tonight’s gig. Too big a name to perform in a pub, but not mainstream enough to draw a UEA crowd, Therapy? returned to The Waterfront for another tour. While their last visit might have sold out (probably due to the promise of a complete rendition of their mega popular 1994 Troublegum album) the venue this evening had a comfortable-sized crowd. Support band The Stags (or ‘The Slags’ as someone had renamed them on the running order poster) were quite a young looking bunch to be supporting the veteran Irish headliners, but their music was anything but. Evoking Seventies prog rock reminiscent of The Doors and Zepplin, these whipper-snappers won the initially sceptical crowd over after one song.
Clearly a lot of the crowd had been fans for many years (myself included) as headliners Therapy? were given a warm welcome. They kicked off with new song Still Hurts, the chorus of which was already being sported on t-shirts among the crowd. The set was a mix of old favourites and new album tracks as one might expect, and some fans were already singing the new lyrics despite Disquiet (their fourteenth studio album!!) having being released for less than a month.
Words Fail Me stood out as a promising new track, as well as Fall Behind which contained Therapy?’s signature mix of melody, aggression and depression. For a band that sing almost exclusively about hating, or being angry and lonely, they are an upbeat bunch. The bassist especially was beaming at every opportunity, seemingly over the moon at being on stage and playing live. There is nothing better than watching a band that love what they do, hearing decent new songs and singing along to classics you love. Speaking of which, Screamager was a belter, and everyone’s favourite Knives was kept as an encore treat. Nowhere was the final song to be played, and my personal favourite so I, among many others, left with a big nostalgic grin on my face.
