Embrace @ The Slade Rooms, 7th November, 2017
Some bands never reach the finish line, instead falling at the first hurdle. Some make it a little further and fall at the third hurdle; for that, read “difficult third album. Some bands reach the finish line in record time and collapse in a hyperventilating heap, hype being the operative word. Some bands however never reach the finish line. They can can set their own, have it moved from in front of them or just jump across into a different track. Embrace fall firmlyinto the latter category. They don’t need to reinvent themselves by jumping tracks, they might have stuttered in the past when the line was moved by record labels, but equally, they set their own finish lines, run their own race and at their own pace. This year sees the band release their latest single, the beautiful orchestral string strewn, “The Finish Line”, complete the recording of their new album, “Love Is A Basic Need”, perform a short run of six dates on this tour, and finish with a headline slot at Shiiine Weekend in mid-November. Oh…. and the small matter of two dates at Principality Stadium, Cardiff supporting their old mates Coldplay.
Tickets for this intimate Slade Rooms gig and all others on this tour sold out in next to no time, many going before general release and to their dedicated following. You can see this at most of their gigs where you will see the same faces night after night gathered together in a few local hostelries pre-gig. So, here we are at a sold-out Slade Rooms, intimate for a band with such history, awaiting their arrival on stage.
Coming on to the dying strains of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” they are welcomed like heroes. Like a band that has been around enough to have a set of crowd-pleasers in their bag which is precisely what they proceed to treat us to. A greatest hits package with a big lump of soon-to-be-crowd-pleasers to back up their still-got-it credentials.
Opening with “Protection” from the last album with almost New Order-like echoes, they are quickly into their stride as they launch directly into one of their biggies, “All You Good Good
People”. Almost twenty years old and still as fresh as it was in the 90s.
It glides on disc, but live it positively soars and Danny McNamara uses his arms in the gesticulations of a football manager telling his players to get up the pitch. Here it is to lift the whole crowd in the first of several singalongs. They instantly oblige.
“Nature’s Law” is another song that builds and then soars followed by a newer one, “Follow You Home” with “Oh,ohh! Oh ohh!” singalongs. We’re then back into crowd fave territory with “Come Back To What You Know” which lets the crowd stretch their lungs again. Newer tracks like “Refugees”, preceeded by “Where You Sleeping”, and both sung by guitarist Richard McNamara, and the latest single “The Finish Line” sit as easy as any other song in the set. If you don’t know the words, and so many of the people there tonight do know them, every single word, then there is sure to be a belter of a hit along shortly that you can sing to.
The last five of the set are total killer hits; “One Big Family”, early full on Indie hit and anthemic growler that gives it’s name to the online social media group that follow the band with extreme zest. Next the emotional “Gravity” which, whilst being penned by Chris Martin of Coldplay and given firstly to tonight’s heroes , it is undoubtedly fully Embrace. “Someday” from the same album, and one of my personal faves, drifts over the venue dripping reverb and gentle feedback on the heads of all of us, before leading into the set closer, “Ashes”. Cue another bouncer of a song; uplifting, soaring and full of phoenix from the ashes positivity.
All the way through the set Danny McNamara has urged us onwards, those waves of the arms looking like he is almost trying to physically lift the audience and make us soar the same way that the songs soar.
How close he is to doing that is hard to say but it was close enough that it means that the band are not getting back to their tour bus alive if they don’t oblige us an encore.
A couple of tracks from the new album include a duet with a young lady called Eevah (?) who has the sort of vocals that much of the generic dross on X-Factor would give their right Autotune to have!
Final track of the four song encore, the ultimate Embrace singalong, and possibly the song that typifies the band is “The Good Will Out”. Danny tells us that this was the song when they, as a band, realised who they were and that they sounded like themselves only. The moment when they became Embrace. Well, yeah hell yeah. This is Embrace going to the heart of it. This is them being their most honest and emotional. However, above and beyond that, for me when a song is so strong, you can hear how someone else could drop in and put their own spin on the song making it sound different but equally as good with ease. That’s not to say it’s in some way simplistic. I mean to emphasise how strong a song it is. As I stand there in the midst of the crowd, as they out pour their emotions back at the band, I’m imagining my favourite vocalists, Janis Joplin and Otis Redding, and how they and their bands would have covered such a great song.
It’s a killer of an end to a great set and the band take centre stage to take a well deserved bow. Still not there yet. Many more Finish Lines still to chase down.
Reviewer: Mark Veitch
Photographer: Phil Veitch
What an evening from such a superb band