The Lottery Winners, Birmingham Institute, 1st March 2025
When I first heard The Lottery Winners back in 2019, I always confused them with The Lathums, due to the lead singer having a similar look, which is unfortunate as I dislike The Lathums, so I kept thinking it was The Lottery Winners I didn’t like. Then The Lottery Winners saved my life in 2020 when they released “An Open Letter to Creatives” and as a creative person recording an album during lockdown, it gave me a new lease of life – every word in that song resonated with me, particularly: “Learn to deal with rejection. Not everyone’s going to like you, and that’s okay. You don’t like everyone else.” and “Stay true to yourself. If you’re telling your own story, you’ll never be boring. Never be boring. Don’t stop creating.” It still means everything to me 5 years on. It is beautiful. I do feel they have polished up their sound in later releases and the raw quality they had earlier on has been buffed out, but it is with great interest I can now see how they sound live five years later.
Support tonight is proof you should always get to a gig early, which thankfully has happened tonight as the Institute is already packed when the glorious Burton band Eighty Eight Miles come on stage. I have been listening to their singles all week and they perform them with skill and a reserved passion in the studio, but the dexterity in their recordings does not do justice to how ferocious they are live; the energy feeds into the crowd who are quickly blown away. Lead singer Ellie has the pop tones of Edie Brickell, but can roar like Bonnie Rait when their arrangements take a country detour. She is dynamic on stage and even ends up in the audience to keep the energy at a high level.
They have a retro sound, which focusses more on classic songwriting than relying on just a sound or vibe. Their influences are pretty obvious when they faultlessly play Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ – initially I thought why are they playing a cover when they have great songs themselves, but the audience, who are for the most part over 40 and like me, over 50, are more than happy to sing along to a song they know well. They perform the song perfectly, but I can see this will be superfluous soon, when inevitably they build up their own following who only want to hear the band’s originals. If you missed them, they are back here next month supporting Brum’s own up and coming hopefuls, Overpass. I look forward to when Eighty Eight Miles next headline as I would love to see more.
Next is The Covasettes who have a sound that reminds me of bands I couldn’t stop listening to a in the last decade: Born Ruffians, Hippo Campus, Little Comets, with their arpeggiated guitar lines and funky, poppy, bouncy songs. Although The Covasettes are not copycats, as they have a style of their own and focus on great melody, great arrangements and stunning musicianship. They radiate joy when they play and it is infectious, with the audience quickly bouncing along. It is a fine performance, but special mention must be made for the bass player who sang backing vocals throughout perfectly, whilst playing intricate basslines. Well worth checking out.
I like to play a game when I visit the Institute and try and guess which of the three rooms the band I am reviewing will be playing. I admit I hadn’t realised how popular The Lottery Winners had become since their early releases, until I saw the queue down Digbeth High Street. I even thought maybe there is a bigger band playing as well as The Lottery Winners, creating this queue. But no, after 16 years of hard graft the band of underdogs from Leigh have sold out the main room at the Institute and lead singer Thom is thrilled by the many tiers that stretch up before them – every seat and every inch of standing room is full.
The Lottery Winners are an unconventional live act. They don’t just turn up and play their songs and then go home; they fully interact with the crowd from the first moment to the last. There is a lot of banter with the audience, multiple monologues from Thom, with him following tangents and flights of fancy no matter where it takes him. For much of the show he keeps slipping into singing Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ (a nod to when the band supported Rick earlier in their career). This becomes a running joke and even when the show ends Rick’s song plays over the PA as people leave.
The whole night actually feels like a variety show from Butlins in the 1970’s and Thom is the Peter Kay-esque compere, as he rallies the crowd with jokes, singalongs, getting people on stage, breaking into other songs during your own songs, doing full length cover versions (I’m still not really sure why they included ‘A New England’ and the horrible ‘Angels’ in the set, as their own songs are so much better to sing along to). But it is a breath of fresh air to see a band so comfortable on stage that they are not restricted by lighting cues or choreography – literally, anything could and did happen.
The moment Thom initially refuses the request by a young fan to play with the band (calling him a bellend after he didn’t know A major’s relative minor chord), but then later gets him up on stage, is a beautiful moment. When Ben, (the fan) is asked to play the guitar part for ‘Letter to Myself’ and everyone immediately sees he can actually play, so is allowed to play the whole song, will live long in my memory. The song being particularly poignant as Ben later says he is also 12 years old (the same age as Thom in the song): “Dear Self, I know you’re crying out for help so, I thought I’d write this letter, what are you now, like 12? I know it seems like the pressure’s stuck on high but I’ve come from your future to tell ya it’s fine.” Thom films the whole song for Ben while he sings and I am sure it will be a treasured moment in that young man’s life.
Maybe some would see that describing the show as a Butlins Variety Show is a criticism, and yeah, the karaoke moment when ‘Angels’ Is played without a hint of irony, grates on me personally, but the undeniable quality of the band’s own songs and their faultless performance truly transcends the holiday camps of the north west and the clubs of Wigan where they first started playing. Don’t be fooled by the apparent casual nature of the band’s delivery though, they make it look natural and easy because so they are so good.
I must mention again that the audience is noticeably old and some of the younger people here have actually come along with their mums and dads (for instance guitar player Ben came with his parents) – it is odd to see gigs where young bands have an older audience. I wrote about this at the Girl Scout gig last month, that these bands have found a following in the middle-aged and above members of society (of which I am one). Is it that us old folk are desperate for new music after decades of manufactured pop junk, and now we have finally found our place where bands thirty years younger than us have found the albums we originally loved in the 70s and are influenced by that music, rather than listening to those bands in the 90s who only copied bands from the 60s? It is a good time for young bands and us punters are being rewarded with astonishingly accomplished writing and performing. I have to say that I haven’t felt this much joy from a whole night of music in a long time and I can finally see a future in the British music scene that isn’t auto-tuned vocals over a drum track: this is an AI freezone and is very exciting.
Setlist:
Let Me Entertain You over PA
Worry
Never Gonna Give You Up (Rick Astley cover)
21 (with snippet of Never Gonna Give You Up during bridge)
Superpower
Sertraline
You Again
Angels (Robbie Williams cover)
You’re Not Alone
A New England (Billy Bragg cover) (Rob solo, with snippet of Never Gonna Give You Up)
UFO
Favourite Flavour
Letter to Myself (with fan Ben on guitar)
Much Better
Start Again (with Seven Nation Army intro)
Encore:
Turn Around (with The Covasettes and touring crew dancing on stage)
Burning House
Never Gonna Give You Up over PA
Review and phone photographs – Alan Neilson
Check out our other reviews , album reviews, news