The show started with the lights dimmed + some Maori music (complete with motorbike samples) being played. There was incense burning on each side of the stage and the crowd went wild. Then the lights went up as the band came on + started to play Fingers Of Love. The backdrop was a beautiful 3D round 'room' with lots of windows that that different coloured lights shone through. If you've seen any pictures of the recording studio at Kare Kare, this is exactly what it looked like. Very simple but very powerful in all the different lighting effects.
Neil and Nick were very chatty with the crowd all night but unfortunately Paul remained quite subdued throughout most of the show . He's fallen victim to the great British flu epidemic so he was taking life a bit easier than usual. However he perked up a lot when he came down to the front for italian Plastic and Sister madly. mark Hart remained silent as ever until a solitary paper aeroplane out of our entire fleet made it past security to Neil. It said 'Mark Hart speak to us' and Neil refused to play another note until Mark spoke. After much prompting he said hi to his friend John in the audience + that was all we got for the time being,apart from the 'Getting Mark Hart to talk on stage is very hard' lyric in Sister Madly.
At a later point in the show Neil decided it was 'that time of the evening' and walkabout in the crowd for five minutes before being escorted back by security. In the meantime , the rest of the band were jamming onstage + Mark Hart sang his heart out on a song we hadn't heard before but presumed was a cover (but not Supertramp!). Mostly mark just stayed in the background away from the limelight.
A lot of new stuff from TA was played. The highlight for me was Catherine Wheels since this is fast becoming my favourite song onh the album. It had a really eerie quality to it, and was more powerful than the album version. Most of the songs sounded pretty much as they do on TA but that's to be expected.In My Command and Locked Out really got the audience dancing while the combination of Fall At Your Feet followed by Private Universe was an inspired choice.
Loads of requests were made for old songs, Six Months In A Leaky Boat was played due to the loudness of the sung request and She Goes On was performed beautifully. The best requseted song however was a very shaky version of I Feel Possessed in which the audience knew the lyrics better than Neil. The atmosphere was amazing.
The band played mostly songs from Woodface and TA as you can see from the set list and even excluded Don't Dream It's Over and World Where You Live as well as the last single Distant Sun. Everyone assumed they were doing the old trick of 'forgetting' to play them until the 2nd encore but it wasn't to be.They fished the show after 2 hours and that was that, which left the audience in a slight state of shock.
But me + my rowdy crowd of friends weren't leaving yet. We waited outside the stage door in the freezing cold for half an hour, being pelted with marshmallows by Nick from an upstairs window. Neil kept appearing at the next window tosay how long they'd be.
Eventually Neil appeared in a huge warm coat + spent a long while signing autographs + answering questions.While he was signing the back of my tshirt, I plugged the list + he was very interested in getting Peter Green hooked up directly to us. When I told him I'd be writing a review for you lot today he made me promise to write a good long one + hoped he could read it sometime. After that Nick appeared at the door but was surrounded by fans, so we hung around patiently until Mark Hart appeared.
This is the we love Mark Hart section of the review. He is the sweetest guy we've ever met. Just like last year when he wasn't an official member of the band he tried to sneak past everybody ( and almost succeeded) and couldn't understand why we'd want to talk to him. We apologised for making him talk by sending the paper aeroplane + we actually had a good conversation with him. He was so friendly and sweet, saying that he really didn't mind being made to talk but prefering just talking face to face.
While we were still trying to get to Nick, Neil had disappeared onto the tourbus but then he re-appeared with a bag of New Zealand pineapple sweets for the fans to reward our dedication for staying out in the cold to meet them. (Especially those of us who had to strip down to our Tshirts to get them signed!) He'd already wondered aloud during the show how anybody could fall in love in Manchester when 'your balls are frozen off'. Apparently the sweets were supposed to be really soft + chewy, but in chilly Manchester they were rockhard (cue another apology from kind Mr Finn.
We finally got to Nick but he was in no mood to talk much,he'd been trapped in a very small corner for about 10 minutes by fans demanding autographs so we didn't take any offence by it.Then Paul appeared looking very small and quiet, especially compared to his usual larger than life character. He was wrapped up in a huge coat and hat to protect him from the cold and just signed everything quickly before disappearing onto the warm bus.
All in all, we had a totally excellent night that I've tried to describe here + even if my dose of the flu comes back it will still have been worth it. If you live in Europe + you haven't caught the tour, don't worry they'll be back in the summer, Neil promised!