Leamington Spa Assembly, winner of venue of the year 2010, is an amazing venue, the staff are always polite and only too happy to help; especially, if like us last night there had been a lapse in communication and no tickets or passes were left at the box office, thank god for email!
I found out earlier in the day that the gig was an all seated arrangement with upstairs closed, quite gutted actually as it's so much better standing at the venue.
Once in the venue it was only a 1/3 full, apparently 300 tickets had been sold for the performance but I quite doubted that as even when Ms Matthews graced the stage there were still quite a few empty seats.
My other half is a massive fan of Catatonia and obviously Ms Matthews, she has a collection to die for, and so last night was a real treat. In the last three years we've seen Ms Matthews six times, even venturing to a little festival in Aberystwyth a couple of years ago, and yes we did go to the amazing Birmingham gig that Cerys kept harping on about last night.
No seat numbers, so first come first served with regards to seats, so we grabbed two on the end of an aisle, especially as I have the longest legs. No support act, which is quite strange and an 8.00 start, thank god we got there early, otherwise we'd have missed the first part of the show.
Merchandise from the 'Don't Look Down' tour, the new album was for sale at the show and Ms Matthews new book, which she kept hinting at the audience to buy throughout the show.
The stage was set with numerous instruments, candles had been lit and everyone was seated. Ms Matthews graced the stage at 8 on the dot, in what can only be described as a 'pulling dress' from the 70's, it was covered in red sequins and just didnt do anything for Ms Matthews.
The first three songs were just Ms Matthews on a guitar on her lonesome, later to be joined by 3 other band members, including one man band Mason Neely, who seems to be able to play everything!
As usual I went up to stage front to take photos, you're allowed three songs, no flash, pretty standard really. I started shooting and about a third way through the first song Ms Matthews stopped and asked if I could stop taking pictures and move to the side of the stage; obviously I thought she was joking so I stayed put, then she said that my camera was noisy and putting her off her train of thought, then, again she asked me to move to the side of the stage, at this point I was beetroot red and wishing the ground to swallow me up: It's not my fault Canon's cameras are loud! Just doing my job!!
Ms Matthews told me it was okay to start shooting again once song two on the set list had commenced, I wanted to die!
The set list was a mix of songs from Ms Matthews back catalogue including 'Don't Look Down', 'Paid EdrychI Iawr' and 'TIR'; Ms Matthews has been a collector of songs since the tender age of 7, some of these saw the light tonight; Unfortunately I haven't got a clue when it comes to the song titles of any of the Welsh ditties, or any of the 'vintage' songs and trying to get a copy of the set list from the stage was a near impossible task, especially as Ms Matthews has forgotten hers.
The 20 song set was all finished and sewn up by 9.45 and we had an interval in between sets of 15 mins, thought this was just for old fogies, which brings me nicely to the audience, I actually felt young last night and that is hilarious considering I'm 42, it looked like Cerys had drafted in the audience from BBC 6 Music listeners (surely you mean Radio 4, not young vibrant 6Music? - Ed).
Gems to come from the set last night included new single 'Sweet Magnolia' from 'Explorer', this highlights Ms Matthews at her best, totally loved it and really wished shed given us more material like this.
Classic 'Chardonnay' made an appearance and I had a little dance in my seat, totally loved this track.
I must admit to being slightly bored during the set, some of the arrangements left a lot to be desired, they seemed slightly dodgy and Neely's guitar at times drowned out Ms Matthew's vocals.
'Galway Shore' included a glimpse of Classic Catatonia 'Strange Glue', new song 'She Da Rooster', 'Into the Blue', 'Sospan Fach', which I was informed last night is the Llanelli Scarlet's song, it was a stonker, loved Ms Matthews passion singing this.
A two song encore included 'Love Me Tender' with just Ms Matthews on guitar.
And that was it, the end. We saw glimpses of pure Matthews delight but on the whole I wasn't set on fire by the set. I did go to the show last night full of enthusiasm and hope and came out totally deflated.
article by: Michelle Owen-Williams
photos by: Michelle Owen-Williams
published: 06/05/2011 13:26
FUTURE GIGS
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