We’re back! This time a real gig, none of this outstore nonsense (it’s exactly the same, I mean literally exactly the same, just in the O2 Academy rather than the Marble Factory, so it’s worse).
But more importantly, this time it’s after the album has been released, a month or so after the fact rather than two days before. I love the album, I know the songs, I’m ready to go, let’s do this.
The omissions from the setlist are… baffling. It’s funny to look back at the notes for the outstore and see me singling out Canary and Dagger’s Edge as highlights - yet here they are, gone, missing, struck from the record! I also note the setlist is shorter by a couple of songs from other gigs this tour, the casualties including my beloved Violent Sun. But yet Pizza Boy remains!
But let us focus on the songs they do play (minus Pizza Boy, I mean seriously, come on now). The one-two open of The Mad Stone and Wild Guess is an excellent way to start a gig. City Song, missing from the outstore and a favourite from the album, is beautiful here. The classics still hit hard, No Reptiles bringing a tear to my eye again.
Divorce open a delightfully Black Country, New Road-esque energy and sound. “This is a song about birds. It’s called Birds”, they declare, and indeed it is. Looking forward to hearing more from them.