The Charlatans + The Arcadian Kicks + Echo Empire @ Coventry Kasbah – 12th May 2009

As always small and perfectly formed, and obviously the owner of an ageing portrait in his attic The Charlatans‘ Tim Burgess always looks very much the same as when the band first rose to prominence in the early 90s. At the Kasbah the crowd treated him with kid gloves and a sort of reverence. Not for him the mobbing and manhandling you would expect when he jumped off the low stage and walked along the barrier, but a restrained and almost respectful series of handshakes and pats as if he would break in two if anyone really got hold of him.

He remains a strange combination of the cute and the awkward with his jerky moves and longish hair covering his face for most of the time. Tonight he took a while to get the aura working but as usual he drew the crowd into the material and by the time the hits appeared in the set he was in total control.

His fellow band members are more like majority the fans these days, wearing less well than their singer but still very much up for it, and after the slow start both the band and the crowd got into their stride to make the evening quite a special one.

Harking back to the 90s the background music for the night was all Stone Roses and Flowered up and it was apt that the first support, local Coventry band Echo Empire had more than just a bit of an early 90s feel to their set, in amongst the typical noughties indie trademarks; fittingly their best song was “1995” with “Halo” and “Suffer”also standing out. The Kasbah stage is not the biggest at the best of times and the band did well to wind it up in a very small area in front of The Charlatans back line.

The main hall at the Kasbah was full by the time Birmingham’s The Arcadian Kicks took to the stage. However they failed to make much of an impression on the majority of the crowd due to a strange deterioration in sound quality, maybe due to the hurried change-over. All guitar and drums on the night, the vocals, sax and keyboards that are a major feature of their songs on their myspace site were to all intents and purposes absent, at least on our side of the stage.

As a result little justice was done to songs like “Charlie”, “Fear of falling” and “Standing in the road” unless you happened to be in the first couple of rows. They probably merit a support slot on their own but maybe they should concentrate on the sound as much as they obviously do the visual side of the band.

In a markedly low key entrance The Charlatans took to the stage with “Weekender” fading into the distance and opened with “The Misbegotten” and “Bad Days” from “You Cross My Path”, their infamous free download album. For a while it seemed that few in the audience had taken up the offer of the download as few seemed to recognise the songs and it wasn’t until “Tellin’ Stories” that the crowd got into it. One of the faithful near me reckoned that they hadn’t played the song since the nineties and when another couple of songs from the free album were followed up by “Jesus Hairdo” he was in seventh heaven. Apparently that hadn’t been played for years either. He looked like a rabid fan so he was probably right!

The set list was well put together and built up to the peak with the excellent “Happen to die”, “The only one I know”, “North country boy” and “Weirdo” rolled out to tumultuous approval which was probably a good thing with a string of festival appearances scheduled for the band later this year. With the later songs being arguably less accessible they will need the earlier hits for the casual
listener.

“One to another” saw the place jumping then just as quickly they brought it down just a notch for the last two songs, again from the free album.

The encore took awhile to materialise but the crowd weren’t to be denied. The eagle-eyed on the front row were thrown a curve ball as the band changed the set list on the fly with “How High” making sure the fans kept leaping around through “Sproston Green”.

Not being an avid fan I’m always surprised by how many songs I know and how many others seem familiar. Maybe The Charlatans ought to be totally huge by now, after all they’ve been around long enough, but if Tim Burgess can continue putting in ageless performances like tonight, and if he still keeps that painting in his attic, they will still up there with the best of the indie bands for some time to come.

Set list:

The Misbegotten
Bad Days
Tellin’ Stories
Come in No.21
Mistakes
You cross my path
Judas
Jesus hairdo
Happen to die
Oh Vanity
The only one I know
Blind stagger
North Country Boy
Weirdo
One to another
Stir it up
Bird
This is the end
——————–
How High
Sproston Green

Review – Ian Gelling

Photos – Steph Colledge

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