Heather Leaves Mostly Autumn

Sometimes a bombshell comes completely out of the blue.

As everyone on The Spill knows, I'm a huge fan of York progressive rock band Mostly Autumn. I've even managed to persuade CaroleBristol to see them on their last tour.

Late on Thursday night came the news that Heather Findlay is leaving the band to concentrate of a solo career. I'm still trying to come to terms with it. I'm completely devastated in a way people for whom music is background wallpaper or a once-a-year trip to an enormodome will never be able to understand, but I'm sure plenty of 'Spill regulars who have been hardcore fans of any band will have been there.

I first saw Mostly Autumn live at Jillys in Manchester back in 2004, and have seem them 40-odd times since, 30 of those in the past three years. Their music has changed my life over the past few years in ways I could never have anticipated, and helped me through some difficult times in my life.

There's just something uniquely magical about Mostly Autumn's live shows; no other band is quite like it for me. Seeing another great band live is like visiting an exotic location on holiday, seeing Mostly Autumn feels like coming home. I've made so many great friends through Mostly Autumn fandom it feels like an extended family.

Although I've only met Heather a handful of times, she has always treated me like a personal friend.

Mostly Autumn are to continue, with their backing vocalist Olivia Sparnenn taking over on lead vocals. The knock on effect of that is that Olivia will be leaving her own band, Breathing Space, another great band I've seen almost as many times as Mostly Autumn, and who now face an uncertain future.

The absolutely electrifying live shows in 2009 meant Heather's time with Mostly Autumn ended on a high. She will be playing one last farewell show with the band, at The Assembly in Leamington Spa on Good Friday, April 2nd. I've already got my ticket.

Hip Prog!

I know next to nothing about Hip-Hop. But I would never have imagined anyone sampling Mostly Autumn.

The song being sampled is "Silver Glass" from the album "Heart Full of Sky", with then keyboard player singing lead. I think they've speeded up his vocal a bit; he doesn't sing that high.

Any of our resident hip-hop experts (Ejaydee?) know anything about this artist?

It's had very mixed reactions on the Mostly Autumn forum...

CD Review - Breathing Space, Below the Radar

Over the past three years, York's Breathing Space have developed from being a side-project of Mostly Autumn's Iain Jennings and Olivia Sparnenn to become a significant band in their own right. While some people may have feared the worst following guitarist Mark Rowen's departure from the band just before the band went into the studio, the band have not only delivered a strong album, but have managed to top 2007's excellent "Coming Up for Air".

As with the last album, Iain Jennings' production is crystal clear. Olivia Sparnenn gets better and better as a singer with some wonderful vocals throughout, and everyone else's playing as the top of their game. For the album they've drafted in Mostly Autumn's Liam Davidson to play guitars, and his more traditional rock-style playing fits perfectly. Without Mark Rowen and John Hart we may have lost the jazz-rock elements from their sound, but the album is still a lot more varied than it's predecessor. Songs ranges from the guitar-based hard rockers and emotional piano-and-vocal ballads to big prog-tinged epics. There's even a bit of the dance music elements which featured on the first album.

It's difficult to single out the high points; there's Olivia's soaring vocals on "Clear" and "The Night Takes You Home", There's the atmospheric ballad "Dusk". "Run From Yourself" combines a dance-pop rhythm with some fantastic Jon Lord-like Hammond organ playing from Iain Jennings. And the closing number "Questioning Eyes".is simply a masterpiece in the same league as Iain's Mostly Autumn classics "Carpe Diem" and "The Gap Is Too Wide"; real lump-in-the-throat stuff, with some evocative cello playing from Charlotte Scott, some superb guitar from Liam, and an emotionally powerful vocal performance from Olivia Sparnenn.

This is shaping up as a very good candidate for album of the year. It's certainly the best thing to come out of York for the past three or four years.

There are some brief sound clips on the band's website, and the album can be ordered here.

Breathing Space, The Intake Club, Mansfield

Olivia Sparnenn

In CaroleBristol's review of Mostly Autumn at Gloucester, she remarked that it would have been good for backing singer Olivia Sparnenn to have a bigger role.

In addition to being Mostly Autumn's backing singer, Olivia also fronts Breathing Space, a band she put together with Mostly Autumn keyboard player Iain Jennings in 2005. What was originally a side project took on a life of it's own when Iain left Mostly Autumn at the beginning of 2006, but they have continued recording and touring even after Iain rejoined his old band at the beginning of last year.

Over the past couple of years Olivia Sparnenn has got better and better as a vocalist and frontwoman. Indeed, she auditioned and made the shortlist for the gig with Finnish symphonic metallers Nightwish, and I still think she's better than the singer who finally did get the job.

Many fans of the band were saddened at the unexpected departure of Breathing Space's guitarist Mark Rowen at the beginning of the year due to good old 'musical differences' (I'll say no more). His replacement was none other than Mostly Autumn's second guitarist, Liam Davidson.

Liam Davidson

Changing just one band member has transformed the band's sound far more that I'd expected. Mark Rowen's economical jazz-tinged playing was a major element of Breathing Space's sound, and Liam has a very different style. With Mostly Autumn he's always very much in the background, but I've always thought he's a far better guitarist than many people realise. Given the chance in the spotlight shows just how good he can playing lead. He doesn't try to copy Mark's solos note-for-note, instead using the basic structure as a template for solos of his own.

The result is a far rawer and rockier band, which actually suits Olivia Sparnenn's powerful vocal style very well. Many of the big soaring ballads and jazz-rock jams that epitomised the album "Coming Up for Air" have been retired from the set in favour of guitar-driven hard rock numbers, turning the overall energy level of the set up several notches. A surprise was the Mostly Autumn standard "Never the Rainbow", which I'd not heard Breathing Space play live before.

The set included several new songs from the forthcoming album "Below the Radar". The title track has been in the setlist for a while, but the standout of the new numbers has to be the encore, "Questioning Eyes", a huge soaring and emotionally moving epic in the same league as Iain's Mostly Autumn classics "The Gap Is Too Wide" or "Carpe Diem".

It's a pity a band this good isn't better known; they deserve far better than playing to less than a hundred people in a small club in Mansfield.

Mostly Autumn - Gloucester 31/05/09

So, Sunday late afternoon, a lovely hot sunny day as we set off up the M5 to Gloucester to see Mostly Autumn at the Guildhall.

A good venue, I think, with a nice bar and a reasonable size. Not a massive audience but clearly a lot of long term followers of the band.

I was a bit unsure what to expect, to be honest. I like the band a lot, based on owning the Glass Shadows album and also from seeing a few vids on YouTube (wildly varying sound and visual quality!).

I wasn't disaapointed though, incredibly polished and professional performance and a really great sound quality.

Lots of people on stage, perhaps they could have benefitted from a bit more room? Certainly Olivia Sparnenn, the backing singer, was hidden away at the back for most of the time. A shame really, because when she stepped into the limelight and let rip she was amazing; what a fantastic voice and bags of stage presence. She is a real rock singer and gorgeous too. Mind you she is in good company, both Heather Findlay, the lead singer, and Anne-Marie Helder, the keyboards/flute/acoustic guitarist/backing vocalist, are also lovely looking and with bags of stage presence too. Just as well really, because the male members of the band aren't really visually exciting; good players but not really a focal point. The women make up for them though; loads of movement, great, eye catching stage clothes and lots of long hair getting tossed around in the spotlights.




The sound was thick and rich, probably down to having two guitarists, two keyboards, bass, drums and two singers on stage, with plenty of instrumental talent on show. I knew that the band was big and with a lot of instruments, that was one reason I was unsure of what they would be like live; in the wrong venue and with a poor sound balance that many players can sound muddy but last night the sound balance and clarity was excellent.

They did a long set with a short interval halfway, a chance to get to the bar for some excellent local dry cider!

Musically, Mostly Autumn are are the melodic end of prog, with a folky kind of thing going on, especially in their older songs. Bryan Josh, the lead guitarist and male lead voice, is clearly a huge David Gilmour fan; his voice is similar to Gilmour's and his guitar style is very influenced by him too, which is a good thing to my way of thinking. He shows Gilmour's influences but he isn't derivative or just a copyist.

Heather Findlay is a real star though. She looks great and she can really sing. She is massively confident as a front person for the band too. When she and Olivia did their big duo song they really set the stage alight, the band ought to have the pair of them doing more twin vocal numbers. Really exciting and two great singers too. That was a real highlight for me.

So, yeah, a good evening. I'd definitely go and see them again. I bought two more of their CDs too, Heart Full Of Sky and Storms Over Still Water.

I've played them both through already and I think I'd go so far as to say that I think that Heart Full Of Sky might be a better album than Glass Shadows on a first hearing.

Finally, it was nice to bump into Kalyr after the gig. Sorry if I seemed a bit distracted, I was getting a bit tired, but it was nice to meet a fellow 'Spiller and seeing as it was via him that I discovered Mostly Autumn, a big thanks.

The Howard Sparnenn Memorial Concert, York

It's difficult to imagine a video of a drum solo being the perfect way to end a gig. I'm guessing the very concept is going to make 'spill regulars heads explode.

But the charity concert at The Duchess in York in memory of Howard Sparnenn, who died a year ago, wasn't any ordinary gig.

Six bands in total, all of which Howard had been involved with, with York's finest, Mostly Autumn, topping the bill. This was as much a social gathering as a regular gig; many, many familiar faces in the crowd, and a lot of people I hadn't had the chance to catch up with for ages. And the atmosphere for the whole evening was incredible; you did feel that it was really about Howard. And he was definitely there in spirit.

Smart Move and Freeway opened the evening with two entertaining sets of covers; Freeway were especially good with their mix of Thin Lizzy, UFO and Judas Priest songs, even though they made me feel old. I remember when too many of them first came out, and it was many years before Olivia Sparnenn was born. They were followed by Free Spirit and Flight, the latter reformed (again) for the occasion, with blues-rock sets made up of what I assumed was original material.

Breathing Space took the stage with a somewhat amended lineup due to some members being unavailable; Howard's daughter Olivia Sparnenn and the Jennings brothers were joined by Bryan and Andy from Mostly Autumn, and Harry James from Thunder on drums. With an improvised lineup this wasn't the best Breathing Space gig I've ever seen, and the set concentrated on keyboard-dominated songs from the first album with very little from "Coming Up for Air". Still Olivia was on fine form, and "The Gap Is Too Wide" with Anne-Marie Helder guesting on flute was wonderful. I always find her renditions of 'The Gap' incredibly moving. I know the song wasn't originally about Howard, but it still fits.

Mostly Autumn are in the middle of their tour, and played a shortened version of their touring set. The eight-piece band rose above a few irritating technical glitches to deliver a tight but emotionally powerful performance. The band have been on superb live form this year with their balance of celtic-flavoured prog and melodic hard rock, this one was well up to their usual standard. They finished in the only way they could on a night like this, with "Tearing at the Faerytale", the song written about Howard not long before he died, and "Heroes Never Die", which never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my head whenever I hear it.

The evening ended with a film of Howard's performing a drum solo, recorded in Matlock in Derbyshire some time in the 1980s. A reminder that Howard wasn't just a great bloke, but a superb drummer as well.

Mostly Autumn, Manchester and London, 27th and 28th Feb 2009

Although I've seen Mostly Autumn nearly thirty times now, this is actually the first time I've seen the band two nights in succession in two different cities. Both the Manchester and London shows on the 27th and 28th of February were rescheduled from September last year due to Heather Findlay's maternity leave.

Mostly Autumn had not played Manchester since a low-key date at Jilly's Rockworld back in 2004, which happened to be the very first time I ever saw the band. This time they played Academy 3, on a stage where I've seen the likes of Michael Schenker, Paradise Lost, It Bites and Blue Öyster Cult over the past years.

A big surprise when the band took to the stage was that Gavin Griffiths was back behind the drumkit, replacing Henry Bourne. I'd always liked Gavin's drumming with his previous stint with the band in spring 2007, and while Henry was in many ways an ideal drummer for the Mostlies, if anyone could replace him, it was Gavin. And he didn't disappoint.

Unfortunately Heather had caught a very nasty throat infection the day before the Manchester gig, and although she managed to sing for something like two thirds of the set, backing singer Olivia Sparnenn stood in on lead vocals for a few songs. It's a tribute to this band that they can still put on a highly enjoyable show despite having their lead singer partially incapacitated, and hats off to Livvy for standing in at virtually zero notice. If it wasn't quite one of the best Mostly Autumn gigs I've ever been to, it was certainly one of those for the Mostly Autumn history book.

Saturday's showcase gig at Shepherd's Bush Empire was their first London appearance for more than a year. With fans descending from all parts of the country, including a busload from York, there was a real buzz of anticipation before the gig, and a lot of faces I hadn't seen for a long time. Nice to meet baby Harlan, who gave me an enormous grin! I met up with a couple of gaming friends who were seeing the band for the first time. I decided it was wise not to mention Heather's vocal problems of the night before to anyone before the gig.

While I love the intimate atmosphere of many of the small clubs I see the band play, it's great to see the same band on a big stage before a sizeable crowd. And they rose to the occasion with an absolute barnstormer of a performance. Heather's voice turned out to be in far better shape than the previous night, with little evidence that she was suffering from any throat problems at all. And the rest of the eight-piece band were also on superb form. This was as tight and powerful a performance as I've ever seen them do, and at least as good a show as from any band I saw last year. From the now-traditional opener 'Fading Colours', the energy level barely dropped for the next two and a quarter hours. The only glitch was the rattling snare drum on 'Above the Blue' forcing a second take of the song.

The setlist contained a few surprises, with oldies like the electrified folk-rock of 'Winter Mountain', along with 'The Last Bright Light' and 'Half the Mountain' from their atmospheric celtic-prog era which haven't featured in the live set for several years. 'Winter Mountain' was especially powerful live propelled by Gavin's drumming, as was "Passengers" hard rocker 'Answer the Question'. The rest of the set was pretty familiar to those who's seen the band at the tail end of last year, Glass Shadows songs 'Flowers for Guns', 'Unoriginal Sin', 'Above the Blue' and 'Tearing at the Faerytale', alongside perennials such as 'Nowhere to Hide', 'Evergreen', 'Spirit of Autumn Past' and of course 'Heroes Never Die' (That flute intro always gives me goosebumps). The final encore was unexpected, a cover of Genesis' 1980 hit 'Turn It On Again' (specially for Jasonaparkes!), and I have to say Heather is a far better singer than Phil Collins.

Although the band had intended to release the recording of Shepherd's Bush as a live album, the band have decided that although the gig itself was great for those present in the hall, the recordings aren't quite good enough to release as an album. So they've postponed the album and plan to record a few dates on the upcoming spring tour. With the band on great live form, with what might just be their best ever live lineup, the tour will be one to see.

Sunday at the Cambridge Rock Festival

First time I've been to an all-day rock festival for more than 20 years - the last one was The Garden Party back in 1986.

The Cambridge Rock Festival (formerly the Rock and Beer Festival) took place in the unlikely venue of the Wood Green Animal Shelter in Godmanchester, just outside Huntingdon. It's certainly one of the so-called 'boutique' festivals, catering for the genres of music outside the fashionable mainstream. This one featured headliners Marillion (who ironically headlined The Garden Party back in 1986). With personal favourites Mostly Autumn, The Reasoning and Breathing Space also on the bill, this is one I just had to go to.

Given the vagaries of the British excuse for a summer, this one took place in an indoor arena. That turned out to be a large cow-shed like building, whose acoustics were actually a lot better than you'd expect.

With both Mostly Autumn, Breathing Space and The Reasoning all having overlapping fan bases, the festival saw the biggest gathering of Mostly Autumn fans since that fan convention last March in the caravan park near Bournemouth; an awful lot of familiar faces there. Add to that a bar with an extremely large selection of real ales, most of which I'd never heard of, so ordering a beer was a matter of choosing something at random.

Local blues band Taildragger opened the proceedings; competent and tight but rather generic; as a friend of mine remarked, blues bands all tend to sound the same. Bijoumiyo were rather better; a mix of funk and reggae basslines with psychedelic guitar, quite unlike anything else on the bill.

The first two acts played to a largely empty hall; clearly the prog fans had time their arrival to get there in time for Touchstone's set. I'd seen them a year and a bit ago supporting The Reasoning; frontwoman Kim Seviour's first ever gig, and that was a somewhat nervous performance. Today they played a confident and energetic set, mostly drawn from their album Discordant Dreams. Probably the proggiest band of the day, but with a hard-rock edge. You could tell they were clearly enjoying their time on stage, and went down well with the growing crowd. I think this performance probably earned them quite a few new fans.

Breathing Space played an absolute blinder. For the biggest gig of their career so far, they rose to the occasion with a superbly tight set, the best band of the first half of the day. Breathing Space have been a great live band this year; a bit poppy for some tastes, perhaps, showcasing Livvy Sparnenn's fantastic lead vocals, but there's still enough instrumental depth to keep prog fans interested. Aside from Livvy, the rest of the band shone too, especially guitarist Mark Rowan. Livvy's striking mermaid costume was definitely the stage outfit of the day.

John Otway's pub-rock meets standup comedy shtick isn't really my cup of tea, I'm afraid, and I missed part of his set in search of food. But I have to say his set closer of The Osmond's "Crazy Horses" with the theramin solo was entertaining.

The Reasoning's set was one of the most eagerly awaited of the day's lineup, their first gig with their new guitarist Owain Roberts. They played strong hard rocking set, mixing favourites from "Awakening", a great version of the Karnataka oldie "Talk to Me" with several songs from the forthcoming "Dark Angel", including the prog-metal masterpiece of the title track, and the live debut of one called 'Call Me God?'. Marillion's Steve Rothery guested with them for "Within Cold Glass". They did suffer from more than a few technical glitches and sound mix problems, which took the edge off things slightly, which meant they didn't quite top Breathing Space's earlier set.

I felt sorry for Jim and Geoffrey. As an acoustic duo (guitar and violin) they struggled to hold the attention of an audience that had been rocked out by the previous band, and despite being quite good, they died horribly. I'd love to see them in a small club venue, where might make more of an impression.

If the number of t-shirts was anything to go by, Mostly Autumn had the greatest fan support of any band on the bill. So many people were seriously annoyed when they got half-an-hour lopped off their set to allow the following band longer to set up. To make matters worse, problems with Bryan's guitar setup delayed the start, so the band ended up playing for just 40 minutes or so, to the intense disappointment of both the band and their legion of fans. But for that short set the band were absolutely on fire; a storming 'Fading Colours', a really intense 'Unoriginal Sin' and a fantastic 'Heroes'. Had they had the opportunity to play their originally planned setlist they would have been the band of the day without question.

In contrast, Andy Fairweather Low was the nadir of the day. As someone who's had a few hits aeons ago, and had since been an anonymous sidesman of other people, he had neither the charisma nor the material to play such a long set this high on the bill. His interminably long set seemed to consist mainly of 50s and 60s covers, with perfunctory takes on his few hits. As someone it's probably better not to name who it was that said "Who wants to listen to this wank? Just because he's been on Later with Jools Holland". Couldn't have put it better myself. Music for chin-stroking Mojo readers perhaps, not not music for the sort of Rock fans who made up this audience.

And so, headliners Marillion. A band I've been a fan of for longer than members of some bands lower down the bill have been alive, playing a 90-minute festival set. To be truthful this wasn't in the same league as the two awe-inspiring shows I saw in 2007; still good, but lacking the sort of intensity I've seen in past gigs. They played what amounted to a greatest hits set of the post-Fish era, favourites like 'Easter', their recent hit 'She's Gone', 'Afraid of Sunlight', 'King' and the encore 'Neverland'. Still very good, but for me at least failed to top the Mostlies, despite their truncated set.

While what happened to the Mostlies put a bit of a damper on an otherwise great day, in the end the event was bigger than any individual band. The whole festival had a relaxed air, members of many of the bands mingling with fans throughout the day, helped by the fact that there was no backstage bar. And there seemed to be no egos involved. That laid-back approach probably would not have worked at a bigger festival, but here it added to atmosphere; the whole thing felt like a fan convention of sorts. It made me wish I'd camped and made a weekend of it.

The Howard Sparnenn Benefit Concert

I've never been a unadvertised private invite-only gig before.

Howard Sparnenn, father of Breathing Space's lead singer Olivia, as well as drummer for the 70s blues-rock band Flight, died tragically in his early 50s of a brain tumour at the beginning of May. He was a familiar sight at gigs, and although I only met him him just over half-a-dozen times, he made me feel like I was a lifelong friend. It was a great privilege to have known him.

Although I've already seen Breathing Space four times this year, I felt this benefit show for the brain tumour charity Andreas's Gift was something I just had to go to. Especially when I'd been personally invited.

It had a very different feel to a regular gig; I guessing everyone there knew Howard Sparnenn; a lot of family friends, although there were quite a big group of Breathing Space fans, with just about all the regulars present. Two big screens either side of the stage shows a series of pictures of Howard, ranging from recent gig photos to holiday snaps from years ago, which served to remind us of why we were here.

I estimated there were about two hundred people there, I'm told they sold all the tickets, and raised more than £3000 for charity. The downside was the with a lot of people there not being fans of the music, the gig was marred slightly by a lot of talking when the band were playing - Livvy Sparnenn actually had to ask people to be quiet at one point.

Breathing Space played two sets, with much the same setlist as they'd been playing this year, with the addition of the cover of "Autumn Leaves", specially requested by Livvy's mum Jeanette. Between the two sets we saw a one-off reunion of Howard's 70's band Flight, a blues-rock four-piece playing a mix of originals and covers, including some of Howard's songs.

I'd noticed the whole of Mostly Autumn were present in the audience; in fact Heather Findlay was sitting right next to me during Breathing Space's second set, making me wonder if I should really have worn that Marillion t-shirt to the gig. I wasn't expecting The Mostlies to take to the stage for a couple of numbers, the very appropriate "Tearing at the Faerytale" and "Heroes Never Die".

Finally Breathing Space returned for their now-traditional encore of "The Gap Is Too Wide". When I first heard this live, I wondered whether they could really do the song justice without the choir for the end section, but they've made it work with the (very prog) big walls of Mellotron.

Musically this was definitely Livvy's night, a very emotional performance which must have been very difficult to do, especially songs like "Belief" and "On the Blue Horizon". One of the band spoke to me afterwards telling me how much he agreed with a recent post in my own blog about Amy Winehouse. While I didn't name any names in that post, we both knew who I meant.

Mostly Autumn

Well, on the recommendation of Kalyr, aka Tim, I bought their latest CD, Glass Shadows in Fopp on Monday.

I have listened through it four times now and I rather like it. Definitely Pink Floydy in places and a bit Genesisish in others but pretty good.

I have to say that I was surprised to see it in there.

While I was there I took the opportunity to snaffle a couple of good oldies for a fiver each, both with bonus tracks too; Split by The Groundhogs (with a live BBC session as the extras) and whatevershebringswesing by Kevin Ayers.

I used to have both on vinyl but the Kevin Ayers one got nicked at a party about 20 years ago and I gave Split to a friend about ten years ago because I'd gone off it. I am glad to have both back again.

Mostly Autumn, Lincoln Drill Hall, June 7th

I love the music of York's finest band so much that this was the fifth gig of the tour I've been to. Their huge epic sound references many 70s classic rock bands from Pink Floyd to Fleetwood Mac to Deep Purple, but they've far, far more than the sum of their influences.

Another new venue for me, the Drill Hall in Lincoln. It's a old Victorian building which has been very extensively refurbished a couple of years ago; standing down the front, and tiered seating down them back. The venue was nowhere near full; this is a band that really need to put as much effort into publicity as they do to their music. They deserve to be filling far larger venues than this.

This gig marked the welcome return of Jon Spence on the mixing desk, and it showed. When a band has four vocalists, two guitarists and two keyboard players, as well as the odd flute, they're very dependent on a good soundman getting both the balance and the separation right. This was probably the best sound mix I've heard so far on this tour; despite being directly in front of Bryan Josh, his guitar didn't drown out the rest of the band, Anne-Marie Helder's flute and Livvy Sparnenn's backing vocals were noticeably more prominent in the mix, which is a good thing.

With the tour nearing the end, the lineup has well and truly gelled now; new drummer Henry Bourne is possibly the best man behind the drums they've had while I've been following them, and Anne-Marie has really fitted in well on multiple instuments; seeing her really going for it on the tambourine during 'Never the Rainbow' is proof she's a very different personality than Angie Gordon, who she replaced at the beginning of the year. And as for Liam Davidson and Iain Jennings, it's great to see both of them back. Iain's Hammond organ pyrotechnics on 'Never the Rainbow' reminded us of what was missing last year. And Heather Findlay, now six months pregnant, just gets better and better on lead vocals.

The two-hour setlist is the same as the last few shows, with four songs from the new album "Glass Shadows", and also drawing heavily from "Passengers". Of the new songs, 'Unoriginal Sin' is turning into a incredibly powerful live number, Heather channelling all that anger and bitterness from the middle of last year, and is made all the stronger by mixing Anne Marie's and Livvy's harmony vocals much higher; very much the high spot of the first half of the set. 'Tearing at the Faerytale' is equally powerful and emotional live. And 'Flowers For Guns' has just got to be a single.

The oldies were equally good; I've never heard them play a bad version of 'Evergreen' and tonight's was no exception; 'Carpe Diem', one of those songs that relies heavily on the sound man getting the balance between Bryan's guitar and the vocals right, was magnificent, and 'Heroes Never Die' is finally making the hairs on back of my neck stand up again; Anne-Marie may have struggled with that flute part on the intro earlier on the tour, but tonight she nailed it.

Just two dates left on this tour now; at Leamington Spa on Thursday 12th, and Stocksbridge the following night. Catch them if you can, they're worth it. After a couple of festival dates, the band will be taking an extended break while their lead singer is on maternity leave.