The Courteeners came to the SU and absolutely smashed it
‘How are we Leicester? It’s been far too long’
Last night the O2 welcomed the return of Manchester’s finest, The Courteeners.
This long awaited intimate tour, on the tail end of a string of festival appearances over the summer, saw the band bring the full force of their main stage glamour to the small, intimate and sweaty main room of the O2.
Coming on to follow Oasis’ ‘Morning Glory’, which went down a treat with the roadman-esque crowd, the band had already set the bar high. Oasis are always going to be a tough act to follow if they’re your intro song.
Kicking off the night with a string of crowd-pleasing songs, from albums “Anna” and “Concrete Love”, like “Are You In Love With A Notion?”, “Cavorting” and “Lose Control”, it was evident that the recent departure of bassist, Mark Cuppello, wasn’t going to affect this performance.
Stopping briefly to ask “How are we Leicester? It’s been far too fucking long”, frontman Liam Fray sporting a Nonchalant Bonafide T from the bands merch stall, held the attention of a sold out O2 audience. An audience who, after recent Leicester City FC triumphs, continually chanted “Get your Vodka and your Charlie, Jamie Vardy’s having a party!”, to which Fray responded “Who the fuck’s Jamie Vardy?”.
The set then took a slow turn as the band left Fray alone on stage to acoustically woo us with tunes such as ‘Let your guard down’, ‘No you Didn’t, No you Don’t’ and ‘Smiths Disco’. But even with the change of pace, and Frays outburst at a crowd member who was throwing drinks onto stage, shouting ‘What kind of knob head pays to see a band live and then stands and throws drinks at them? You know who you are and you’re a wanker’ the atmosphere in the room remained electric
Just long enough for the band to return to shred psychedelic rock tunes like ‘Next Time you Call’, ‘Here come the Young Men’, ‘Beautiful Head’, ‘Not Nineteen Forever’ and wrapping it up beautifully with ‘What took you so long’?
Rumored to be supporting fellow Mancunians The Stone Roses next June at their massive homecoming gigs at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium, and already confirmed for next years T in the Park, it’s clear that there’s nothing stopping this lot right now as they grow from strength to strength holding crowds of all shapes, sizes and ages across the country, hopefully with a return to Leicester very soon, as after last night, Leicester would welcome them back with open arms.