The Beat Surrender

First time I have had tickets for a re arranged, re arranged concert we last travelled to Sheffield 3 days before Christmas full of anticipation and ended up shopping in Meadowhall! I had been looking forward to seeing The Fratellis but Serge’s illness put a stop to this, however the replacement band The Music were definitely not second best. Before we set off I looked them up on the internet, they were formed in Kippax, Leeds in 1999 and have so far released 2 albums and 10 singles! Impressive especially when most have charted and quite high too. They started well with ‘Take The Long Road and Walk It” which was their first single release. The set was quite short, seven tracks in total, all from the earlier albums with the exception on ‘Symbol of Hope” which I thought was one of the best.

They ended with ‘Bleed From Within’ which left me wanting them to play on. Singer Rob Harvey’s voice is truly amazing, he can hit the high notes, bring it down low and still sounds crystal clear. Most memorable is his incredible stage presence, he dances like no one I have ever seen before, such arrogance but at the same time really engaging with the audience, I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage. A small crowd at the front of the stage had obviously seen them before or even made the trip just to see them they were going wild. Sheffield Arena is a big venue and it suited The Music down to the ground, for the short time they were on they managed to carry their enthusiasm right up to the 2nd tier, no mean feat. (8/10)

Perhaps the waiting had caused to much anticipation, a bit like waiting for Christmas and when it arrives its always a bit of a disappointment. The DJ playing music while we waited for them to come on was pretty good, definitely an improvement on the usual tapped rubbish you get. This gigs comes near the end of a very busy period for Kasabian, they seem to have been touring for ever. for the best part of the concert I wasn’t impressed perhaps it was that Kasabian were tied, I was expecting too much or the fact that the only tickets I had been able to get my hands on were up near the roof, no literately near the roof, we were one row from the very back.

Kasabian arrived on stage minus Tom, then a long instrumental started. This seemed to happen a lot throughout the show, which although shows they can play them instrument can be tedious. Then Tom arrived everyone cheered and I expected to get on a high straight away but I have to say the wild atmosphere of the standing area didn’t quite reach us. In fact it seemed to me that the band weren’t quite with it, the first few songs could only be described as lacklustre. Tom then handed over to Serge for British Legion, which is a lovely song but in contrast to a lot of Kasabian tracks, slow and melodic.

Whatever was said (or went on) off stage certainly did the trick when Tom came back on stage he was like a different person, much more animated, jumping around and generally engaging the crowd. All the old favourites were covered at some point, from both Kasabian and Empire. We were really lifted by the livelier tracks (most notably Empire) but perhaps the distance from the stage prevented this from being maintained throughout the show. I have always felt that neither Serge or Tom vocally quite repeat the studio sound live but this really doesn’t matter if you are fully enjoying the concert which for most of the time I did.

Minor irritations could have spoilt the enjoyment, like did he really have to shout SHEFFIELD after every song! and the faulty speaker directly above our seats which crackled really loud everytime Serge sang. I didn’t quite reach the point of wanting to walk out and boy was I glad I didn’t when the band came on for the encore they were absolutely amazing. The whole place lifted, I wouldn’t have been surprised it the roof hadn’t moved, I didn’t see more than one person sitting (miserable sod sat a couple of seats away, looked like he was eating lemons all the way through, perhaps he came on the wrong night and was waiting for the ballet).

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