Live Review: Shed Seven and The Twang – Venue Cymru, Llandudno
~ 06/12/2019 ~
Photo by – Tamsin Jones
Shed Seven formed in york in 1990. Majorly, one of the dons of the Britpop indie scene with hits such as ‘Speakeasy’, ‘Going For Gold’ and ‘Chasing Rainbows’.
Although they didn’t receive as much hype as the bigger Britpop bands such as Oasis and Blur, they certainly secured themselves in the folklore of the 90s indie scene and in people’s music memories. Shed Seven‘s first album released after 16 years titled ‘Instant Pleasures’ went top ten in 2017 and showed that this band were long from being forgotten, also re-releasing the album ‘Going For Gold’ and playing their biggest ever headline show at Castlefield Bowl in Manchester proved that they have staying power.
With Shed Seven‘s lead singer Rick Witter announcing, ‘Will you be joining us for shedember?’ The tour rolled into Llandudno.
Photo by – Tamsin Jones
Their support act The Twang definitely deserve a mention on this tour. Walking straight on to debut single ‘Wide Awake’, frontman Phil Etheridge bounced along with pure passion as he was singing the lyrics. The two female vocalists also joined them on stage, Cat Mctigue and Rio Hellyer recently joined the band after the departure of Martin Saunders.
Joking with the crowd about the lack of llandudno’s nightlife by informing everybody about the
local karaoke night in the pub The Carlton, he definitely made a strong connection with the steadily growing crowd.
‘Barney Rubble’ came next which was definitely one of the crowd’s favourite tunes of the night… Leading into ‘Everytime’, which gave us the opportunity to hear the amazing vocals from Cat Mctigue.
Finishing with ‘Took The Fun’, echos of “La la lah lah loh” from the crowd continued when they left the stage.
Photo by – Tamsin Jones
Shed Seven burst straight into ‘Room In My House’ from their 2017 album ‘Instant Pleasures’, this first tune also saw frontman Rick Witter showing off his impressive bendy moves and making full use of the long microphone lead…
The second track introduced a small brass band which really added to the energy and got the crowds moving even more.
“Do you want to go back to the 90s?” Witter shouted to the crowd during the intro to ‘On Standby’.
‘Going For Gold’ was delivered in its purest and most perfect form. ‘Getting Better’ saw Witter jump down from the stage and get all the crowd involved passing the mic over for everyone to have a song-a-long.
The mesmerised crowd screamed along to Witter asking the question “Have you had a breakup?’ Without waiting for an answer he screamed, “She Left Me On Friday…..”
The crowd were now eager to see what Shed Seven were going to finish with, with the backdrop Curtains shining gold and the brass band back out on stage it was the turn of ‘Disco Down’, this gave the crowd even more reason to carry on dancing along with Witter quick-stepping and Tom Gladwin’s bouncing around with his guitar. The eagerly awaited ‘Chasing Rainbows’ started up with Witter putting as much emotion into the song as he had this far, as did the audience swaying, hugging and singing.
Not only do Shed Seven show themselves to be a band of the 90s with staying power, the band are currently sitting in a stronger, more popular position than they have ever been in and also they have shown the ability to move with the times which their album ‘Instant ‘Pleasures’ shows. An album relating to most people’s lives whilst being energetic enough to get everyone moving and escaping their lives for a little while …….
(Review by – Tamsin Jones)
Photo by – Tamsin Jones
Photo by – Tamsin Jones
Photo by – Tamsin Jones
I don’t charge any publishing fees and self-fund all aspect of The Indie Masterplan. Any donation will be massively appreciated and will go back into the running of the website. Thank You.
https://paypal.me/theindiemasterplan
