Saturday night at the Cheese and Grain in Frome The Lightning Seeds in the third date of their month long tour. This gig sold out weeks ago so I knew the crowd were expecting a good show.
Tonight’s support came in the form of Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) who rose to fame in the 90’s, much like Ian Brodie and his band The Lightning Seeds. Gough arrived onto the stage at 8pm wearing his trademark Beanie hat to warm applause, running through some of his more well know songs including Something To Talk about and ending with a beautiful piano version of Silent Sigh. He played and impressive 45 minutes in which he said “I am more worn out doing a 45 minute support slot for the Seeds than a 2 hour show for myself” said with a smile and appreciation for having the chance to tour with the Lightning Seeds.
Next up was the main act, the one the crowd were eager to see. A packed venue cheered and shouted as Broudie and his band took to the stage and he greeted them with a “Hello Frome how are you” to which the crowd responded by shouting back various responses. Brodie and the band took to their places and he quipped “tonight is a mix of old and new songs….but mainly the older ones!” which hit the spot with the crowd. First up however was new song Sunshine, track 5 from new album “See you in the stars” released last month, which due to it’s recent airplay on the radio had the crowd singing along.
The audience were treated to a few songs from Jollification, two heavyweight tracks Lucky You, which included a guitar solo from Brodie and Perfect early on in the set. This is by far their most popular album to date. Great To Be Alive closely followed and This Was from the new album.
Both had a good reaction and was warmly received. While You Showed Me had them dancing, and more class songs followed with a nice triple in the shape of Sugar Coated Iceberg, The Life of Riley and Pure which led up to the two song encore. The first song being Marvellous which the crowd brought in with their singalong.
The final song of the night was Three Lions which as Broudie reminded us the World Cup was only three weeks away. The response to the song was incredible and looking round I could see everyone was singing it.
A fitting end to a great set of both old and new songs proving that the Lightning Seeds are still relevant.
Review and photos by Martin Smith for TrueStyleMusic. No use without permission.
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