Squeeze - Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone - 27th November 2012 (Live Review)
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Monday, 10 December 2012 |
Written by Ryan Crittenden
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The ‘Pop Up Shop Tour’ marks a return for the legendary band who have once again packed-out venues across the country including this evening for their show at Folkestone’s Leas Cliff Hall. New and mainly old fans are crammed in to watch the old-timers at work.
 Warming the crowd up was a headline act in itself, former Beautiful South man Paul Heaton entertained the sizeable crowd for a good 40 minutes, dropping in old Beautiful South and Housemartin’s favourites in alongside some of his newer, fresher material. The ex-Housemartins man has one of the most recognisable vocals in music and his performance throughout was flawless. He has a great rapport with the crowd who lap up his wittiness and the fact that he can make a joke out at his expense when introducing his younger band. A great warm-up and just a reminder that this singer has still got a lot to give.
Squeeze hit the stage with a ‘Bang Bang’, literally. They launched straight into their opening number from their 1978 debut album and didn’t really look back from there. As the band crack through their set with songs like ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ and ‘Slap and Tickle’ it doesn’t take long to realise that the vocal performance of Glenn Tilbrook in particular is not at the high standard many are expecting. The chemistry between Tillbrook and his band mate Chris Difford is also noticeably absent but this doesn’t mean that the band did not put their all into the performance.
The rather lacklustre crowd was probably not helping the band get going but when Squeeze favourite ‘No Place Like Home’ starts, the whole atmosphere changes and things certainly step up a gear or two. Drummer Simon Hanson was giving a seriously heavy performance and some very energetic and charismatic keyboard magic from Fred McPhearson lookalike Stephen Large certainly helped makes those melodic and catchy Squeeze numbers sounds alive.
Squeeze rattled through their long set, with the new material and odd album tracks thrown in the mix to give every fan something to cheer. Sandwiched between the traditional Squeeze tracks is a lovely acoustic break, with all members turning their hand to delivering some fine vocals and musicianship. The finale of the main set felt like a celebration, with Tilbrook’s vocals fine tuned and the band in full flow, ‘Up The Junction’, ‘Tempted’ and ‘Pulling Muscles (From the Shell)’ were given the treatment they deserve. The mass sing-a-long was the perfect way to end the main part of the set and left the crowd wanting more as the 5 piece triumphantly exited the stage.
For the encore, Squeeze did not disappoint ‘Cool For Cats’ got some members of the crowd really going and a great touch from the band on final number 'Goodbye Girl’ sees the band make their way through the audience, instruments in hand...bravo chaps.
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