With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

#It is hard for me to believe that Echobelly formed 32 years ago, how can that be? How are the 90s more than 30 years ago? Anyway enough ramblings from this old bloke, earlier this week I had the privilege of witnessing Echobelly playing live for the first time since I saw them at the Old Trout in Windsor back in April 1994. That doesn’t account for a number of times I saw them at festivals though. Are they still good? You will have to read on to find out, first I need to give you the low down on the rather excellent support band Blue Violet.

Blue Violet released their debut album ‘Late Night Calls’ in 2022 and their sophomore release, ‘Faux Animaux’ is scheduled for early in 2025. They have been championed by some influential radio stations including BBC 6 Music whose Steve Lamacq described them as “a cocktail of Iain Banks and Jane Austen”. I can see where Steve was coming from having witnessed Blue Violet for the first time. If I was remaining on a literary comparison theme I might add Douglas Coupland. Their music has a dark and mysterious pop rock style and is loaded with great hooks. Vocally Sarah McGrigor and Sam Gotley where on top form in York. The material from the first album has a slightly electro feel, but they add a rockier element to it on stage. There were, I think, three songs from their debut album in the set; “Undercover”, Hard Rain” and “Asylum”. The stand out of those older songs was “Hard Rain” for me. one of their 2024 singles, “Imagine Me” seems like a stalking song and has some synth riffs that evoke the Sisters Of Mercy in a pop goth style or even Kylie applying loads of Kohl eye makeup and going full on Goth-Kylie. The highlight of a set full of peaks was probably current single “Fire”. Although I loved “Human After All” so much I bought the t-shirt! The band were incredibly tight and Sarah is a great performer who seems to love engaging with the crowd, she does that like she was born to it. I think the new album could be a classy collection of songs and having seen Blue Violet live and frankly, on fire, I am looking forward to new music from them.

Finally it was time for Echobelly, let me say up front that Sonya Madan has aged far better than I have, does she have a Dorian Gray style picture in her attic? Whether she has or not the music is the main point here and what a point it was. You could sense it was going to be a great night as soon as the opening bars for “I Can’t Imagine the World Without Me” from 1994’s debut album ‘Everyone’s Got One’. The crowd were excited for every song but the buzz went up a gear when the band hit us with “Car Fiction” four songs in. This is one of my favourite Echobelly songs and comes from their 1995 album ‘On’. The whole audience was bouncing for that and the next couple of songs. Mid set Sonya announced that the band would be taking it down a little, to be fair I needed a rest at that point. We were treated to gorgeous and perfect acoustic takes on “Insomniac” from 1994 and “Worms And Angels” from 1995. There was a huge singalong element to the set which might have peaked with the magnificent “Great Things”, what a great song that is!

The three song encore was immense and probably loosened the rafters on the Crescent’s roof. “King Of The Kerb” just smashed it with everyone in the band firing on all cylinders and turning everything up to 11. A little more introspection was on offer with “Giving It All” (originally a part of Glenn and Sonya’s side project Calm Of Zero) and finally we were hypnotised into total submission with “Dark Therapy”. Echobelly have been around a while and they will be around for a hell of a lot longer too. A great show!

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