Sunday 8 April 2012

A Cast of (well hundreds) in Brum


Cast - Gig 15!

Another trip to 1995 arises with the chance to get reacquainted with John Power after quite a long time. Having pottered down to the ticket office to save the 20% transaction fees incurred through Internet charges I headed down to the Dome, stopping only to buy my (and a homeless chaps) tea from the very reasonable eat for less (but try not to think what's in your baguette) chain 99p per baguette.

It was good to see Cast's name up in lights although I was brought back crashing into 2012 when they were playing in the smaller venue at the O2 Academy. Cast were supported by a couple of bands, first pleasant enough local lads Looca, followed by scousers Cold Shoulder who despite looking older than me were getting ready for their debut ep. They did have a number of good tunes though, good harmonies.


After a while Cast came on, each band member coming on and tuning up together before John Power came on to decent applause. JP warned all present that he would be playing a lot of songs from the new album, with a few older ones which seemed reasonable, although a greatest hits set would have gone down better with the keen mosh pit. The mosh pit was definitely a blade convention, so I felt quite at home, although happy to watch as ever from the edge.

The songs cracked on, JP launching into a new one, which sounded cracking, a real return to form, followed however by 2 or 3 which were definitely filler rather than killer. JP did however have a nice line in holding his guitar vertically for an impressive strum.

Then came an extended intro for Sandstorm, and I was back to 95 again. Britpop was in full flow and the crowd started bouncing. This was then repeated for the rest of the gig, couple of new, oldie bounce, then the run through to end and a run of singles reminding me how fine an ear for a pop single JP had.

Encore started off with one I think JP thought was a lost gem from the early albums, again so so, followed by Alright which was superb, and then the final song started with loads of weird keyboard noises being played out of a guitar....the song then cracked on as normal, finishing with each band member doing a solo....finally from the drummer, finishing on a drum solo was a nice unique approach and something I've not seen for some time.

It didn't matter that JP was losing his voice, the pop gems carried smoothed over this.

All in all, new stuff one choon, old stuff cracking pop gems.



Set List

  1. Encore:





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