Manchester

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The Life Café, Manchester, 16 March 2005

Back to the future! Robin may well remember playing The Free Trade Hall in this great city, some thirty years ago. Davey tells me later it’s his first time here since performing at that great Hall back in 1982.

The City has certainly changed a lot since then. Tonight we are standing on the opposite side of the road to the building that was once the Free Trade Hall. We’re in a tiny club venue called the Life Café. The place is packed.

They say that lightning never strikes in the same place twice

John Amor starts his set with ’24 hours’, the song he closed with, in Southsea. It’s a very intimate venue and we are pegged up close to the stage. From the crushing ‘smash and grab’ of the opening chord for ‘Too Rolling Stoned’, it’s clear, the crowd are up for it.

I must report that the sound tonight is much improved and certainly not as loud as Southsea! The Café is barely a quarter of the size of South Parade Pier. There are people waving and applauding from the balcony but, even so, the ceiling height here is much lower than that found in the cavernous Pier.

What a great second number ‘Sweet Angel’ is proving to be! The chorus is the perfect platform for Robin’s mellifluous solo in the middle and at the end. What a fabulous start!

A huge cheer greets the beginning of ‘Daydream’. Robin’s soulful improvisation at the end of the song is longer and more intense than that played two days earlier, by the sea.

All five of the songs from the new album get a tremendous welcome. Davey ‘I am the one and only’ Pattison pours heart and soul into ‘Living out of time’. As if in response to the audience’s appeals, the band then ploughs into ‘Day of the Eagle’.

The bridge into ‘Sighs’ elicits huge applause from the sell-out crowd. In no time at all, we get to ‘thank you very much, goodnight!’

It’s great to meet Robin and the band after the show. If you’re joining this tour don’t forget your black marker pen and £13 cash for the tasty new ‘Living out of time’ remix album.

Set List: Too Rolling Stoned; Sweet Angel; What's Your Name; Rise Up Like The Sun; Daydream; Living Out Of Time; Breathless; Day Of The Eagle; Bridge of Sighs; Close Every Door; I Want You To Love Me; Please Tell Me; Another Time, Another Place; Little Bit Of Sympathy. Encores: Come To Me; Secret Place

This review was originally published on Steve Shail’s excellent Trower website ’Steve’s Place’. Cheers Steve!
To visit the site click on the link below.

More reviews from Trower’s 2005 UK Tours

Southsea   Manchester   Bilston   Sheffield   Nottingham
London    Gloucester   Southampton   Deal
Brighton   Cambridge   Glasgow   Aberdeen   Birkenhead
Dartford   Durham

This site is a howardtowers.com production realised in the UK, March 2005.
Published by Alan Howard. Contributions and comments welcome by email