The Bluetones are back on the road following their string of Summer festival dates and armed with new EP – “Drive Thru” the indie legends bring their latest tour to the HMV Empire in Coventry.
First up were rock band ‘The Loose Cut’ who tonight, following a family emergency have had to make a last minute change and play acoustically without a drummer. If you were unfamiliar to the band, you’d be convinced that this is how they play all the time. Despite lack of rehearsal time, the band played a flawless set to the attentive Coventry audience.
The band, who have had national airplay on Chris Hawkins 6 Music show had some beautifully crafted songs, about the struggles with growing up skint, resisting the urge of drug use and even got the crowd singing along to standout track, for me ‘Round and Around’
I hope to catch these guys as a 4 piece soon, but it’s great to see range in a band who can switch things up when needed.
Following a short interval, the venue was nice and full and the sounds of ‘The Rubinoos’ song ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ played out, as The Bluetones entered the stage, led by lead singer Mark Morris, wearing matching Converse trainers and white t-shirts all with each band members role on across their chest.
The joy of a Bluetones show is you never know what your going to get, down to Marks interactions with the loyal crowd members, who shout out requests and tales from the bands near 30 year run as a band.
Mark lets us know that they will be playing new songs, a long with classics so you’ll have to time your toilet breaks accordingly not to miss the good stuff with a cheeky grin.
Opening with ‘Bluetonic’ from 2009’s album ‘Expecting to Fly’ the band streamed seamlessly through old and new tracks, all with a tale from Mark, most poking jibes at the crowd for not buying or doing their research into the new tracks.
There were special shout outs to a crowd member, Travis who was celebrating his 17th birthday at the show, despite Mark not being a fan of him learning to play drums.
The live tracks from the three track EP (that was released last month) sounded great live, despite was You-Tuber DB4483 may have thought of the tracks.
This show was also the first time the band had played track ‘Cheap Hotel’ live for a crowd.
The biggest song of the night was obviously the classic – ‘Slight Return’ which pleased many of singing Coventry crowd, before the band took off for a well earned toilet break before their encore which featured a melody of Van Halen, Iron Maiden to name just a few.
The band have promised to be back next year, if people still want them to play, and if they still think they have it, and this show proves that The Bluetones are still one of the best live bands going, despite what Andi Peters and DB4483 may think
See you next year!
