The Music returned to Liverpool for the first time in years, an astonished Luke Traynor hopes they’ll be returning much quicker next time around.
Apparently singer Robert Harvey wasn’t feeling too good in the run up to The Music‘s gig in Liverpool on Wednesday night.
His tour manager said he was coming down with a spot of flu and the concert was definitely in the balance.
Thank God for Lemsip, paracetemol and his powers of recovery, otherwise this maxed-up, high octane pulsating night would have been lost to us all.
You could never tell the Leeds frontman might be struggling as his astonishing banshee like vocals soared in all their rip-roaring glory.
It’s the first time I’ve seen The Music live. To be honest, I thought the first album was great, but since then I’ve let them slip off my radar. More fool me.
Diving straight in, Harvey launched into perhaps their most well-known track Take The Long Road And Walk It which started the gig off at the highest notches and it barely ever relented. Next up, it was a cracking song from the new album called The Spike as the hypnotic mix of driving guitar and raved up beats produced waves after wave of all-enveloping sound.
For a fairly small venue as the Carling Academy is, the light show was pretty spectacular and combined with the music, it was certainly sounds to pleasantly addle the brain.
If ever there was a band a person would wish to take mind altering drugs while listening to (who would do such a tning?) The Music come close to top of the bill.
Harvey is an interesting character. Now with the locks shorn off, and a little older, he’s your every day Johnny. He looks like he could come and fix your roof for you. Or he may just be related to former Bolton Wanderers man Sasa Curcic.
That aside, he’s got one of the most stunning voices rock has seen in the last decade. He glides across the stage, thrusting himself forward with robotic movements that just whips the audience into a frenzy.
Onto Human, a big fan’s favourite, and its slow-burning lilt, gushy chords and brilliantly pained Harvey wailings before Strength In Numbers energised the seeting masses. There was a hardly an onlooker who wasn’t moving a limb. A great track that one and it’s the new single. Defo worth a listen.
It didn’t seem possible to up the ante any further – there were broad grins on everyone’s faces as we all realised that one of the best talents and live acts since the Millennium, were back in our consciousness.
But up it they did, with a barnstorming version of The Truth Is No Words, the repetitive lyrics being thrust out to give us the best song of the night.
Welcome To The North, off the album of the same name, was hungry and angry and worked perfectly in Liverpool, an anthem to people like you and me who love the honesty and worldliness of the gritty streets south of the Watford Gap. The refrain rang out like a clarion call around the Academy.
A little subtext was the heavy handed boucers nearly throttling anyone who dared crowd surf during the high adrenaline moments. It only happened twice, and a finger was jerked to a barely discernible paper sign which apparently told people not to surf. What’s all that about? Health and safety coming to rock gigs now?
We were nearing the end now, 90 minutes of flouncing around in a hazy state is a decent stint. But there was still time to pull out a few of the big ones.
The brashness of The People was explosive, almost descending the concert into a full on rave, that crystal clear voice outstanding throughout. It’s special because it was all about us, the people, ‘changing the way we live now…‘
The rocking Getaway kept us dancing, always a crowd pleaser, before the finale and a gorgeous Bleed From Within ending with all four band members on a set of drums, melody halted, hammering out incessant rhythms to send us on our way buzzing into the wet night.
A fitting end to a concert that had brilliance written all over it.
