What: Squeeze and The Feeling
Where: Royal Albert Hall
When: 22nd March 2011
Tonight's gig was the first musical event in the annual week of Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT) gigs at the Royal Albert Hall. The charities patron is Roger Daltrey and he is up on Thursday night with other acts scheduled including Biffy Clyro, Tinie Tempah and Liam Gallagher's new band Beady Eye.
What normally sets these gigs apart from the norm, other than the beautiful RAH are the interesting collaborations or different musicians used. These often feature orchestras and Squeeze took that chance tonight. The other thing that sets these gigs apart is that the support acts are often well known as main bands in their own right. Support acts for this week include Jessie J, The Xcerts and tonight's opener The Feeling.
As a result most people are in their seats before the support take to the stage. Geoff Lloyd from event media sponsors Absolute Radio introduces them reminding us that in 2006 they were the most played band on radio. Pretty shortly into the set you can see why. The Feeling play some very infectious pop/rock even when Dan Gillespie Sells (the singer) is suffering with a heavy cold. Perhaps buoyed on by adrenaline or the whisky (medicinal only you understand!) he jumps around the stage and onto the speaker cabinets. Their nine song set has even Squeeze fans up on their feet dancing and clapping along. Obvious crowd favourites include "Never be lonely", "Love it when you call" and crowd pleasing cover "Video killed the radio star". Dan paid tribute to The Buggles singer/bassist and renowned record producer Trevor Horn in his introduction to the song. However it's not just the singles that go down well from The Feeling, even their new tracks are warmly welcomed.
After a very short interval and a rushed pint in the beautiful Grand Tier bar it was back on my swivel seat in the stalls. This is what gig going is all about, none of your sticky floors and smelly toilets for me now. I could get used to carpet without chewing gum and immaculately dressed ushers showing me to my seat. Oh yes and a restraining rope to gently remind those at the front to stay off the stage. There's something about the RAH that breaths dignity into the crowds. It is the easiest stage to get onto but I've never seen anyone rush it no matter who's playing.
On the one hand I needn't have rushed to get back to my seat and could have enjoyed my Japanese Asahi beer. Even the RAH serenity couldn't stop the inevitable jokes about it glowing in the dark! I'd never had Asahi beer before so I was a little dubious as they were the official beer sponsors in the venue. It was either that or the other official drink sponsors, champagne makers Moet and I may want comfort with my gigs nowadays but I can't forsake the beer and it was certainly worth the chance.
I am glad I did rush to take my seat as before Squeeze took to the stage we were shown a video about the work of the TCT. It's easy when your life is relatively settled and you are out enjoying yourself to forget how devastating it can be finding out you have cancer. Multiply that effect when you are young and thought you had your whole life ahead of you. This used to be compounded when teens were thrown in wards with old people, some of them pushing 30! Joking aside, it's difficult enough but without people your own age and an environment where you feel at home the illness takes on a depressing extra edge that certainly won't help recovery.
This is Where TCT excel, they provide treatment centres and support and don’t believe that teenagers should have to stop being teenagers, just because they have cancer. They fund and build specialist units for young people in NHS hospitals. Their units bring teenagers with cancer together with loads of new friends of their own age so they can support each other. The video brought home that reality and made people realise why that being there wasn't just about the music.
Squeeze's frontmen and songwriters Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford took to the stage sporting Damien Hirst designed spotty guitars and standing in front of a matching Yamaha drum kit. These will later be auctioned off at Christies in aide of TCT and another charity the Love Hope Strength foundation.
The pace and tone for the evening was set from the start with the opening three numbers being hits "Black coffee in bed", "Annie get your gun" and "Is that love". Casual Squeeze fans were soon reminded about the songwriting prowess of Difford and Tilbrook. Perfect pop with lyrics that at once hook you in but paint wonderful stories of everyday life. Having set a blistering pace it was fairly likely that there would be a bit of a come down whilst some of the lesser known tracks were showcased. That's not to say these aren't good tracks however more that they brought down the party atmosphere.
It wasn't long before we were back to hitsville with "Up the junction", "Labelled with love" and the fabulous "Tempted". This is probably the best song written about a musicians' life on the road and the perils of being away from home.
Despite having the orchestra on the stage they weren't over used at all, in fact I would have been happy to hear more arrangements that took advantage of them and were specifically written to highlight them. As it was their use added some nice colour to the arrangements but their presence didn't make the night as I expected it to.
A couple of things caught my notice during the set, the first was a small child sitting on the side of the stage with large yellow headphones. I'm guessing by the occasional visits by Glenn's wife Suzanne that it was his son. What a proud moment that must have been for Glenn and one I hope his son will hold dearly. The second was an overhead mic on the drum kit that was determined to collapse at the most inopportune moment. I managed to catch its daring attempt to play drums on my video, I choose just that moment to zoom into the drummer Simon Hanson. The look on his face was a picture and his disdain apparent as he tossed the mic stand away and you can hear it crash to the ground loudly.
More hits led us into the end of the regular set including a great version of "Slap and tickle" with Glenn showing that he's very capable of making great music on keyboards and not just guitar. Another keyboard highlight was Stephen Large playing what looked like an iPad for the solo on "Pulling mussels from a shell".
For the first encore Glenn Tilbrook took to the stage for "Vanity Fair". A lovely song where he sang with the only backing being from the orchestra. This was followed by the return of the band together with a myriad of TCT patients to join together in singing Squeeze's biggest hit "Cool for cats".
The final song was very appropriate for the evening and that was a new arrangement for "Some fantastic place". This song lyric was written by Chris about Glenn's ex girlfriend who had pushed Glenn to answer Chris' advert and then continued to be good friends of both of them despite Glenn and her splitting up. She had died from Leukaemia before this song was written. I'm not sure why the new arrangement, however I don't think it's as strong as the original and lacked some of the uplifting feeling. I'm not sure why Squeeze didn't make more of the background to the song considering why we were there tonight. Perhaps it was too close to home and would have made singing it in that atmosphere difficult.
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No photo pass for tonight's gig as PA have an exclusive with TCT, however here are my photos: