Stereophonics @ Fremantle ArtsCentre (10/04/10)

Tue 13th Apr, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Find yourself in Williamb’s gallery

After 10 years of waiting, everyone’s favourite Welsh rockers, Stereophonics arrived in everyone’s favourite city, Fremantle, to usher in a night of beauty and melancholy and unleash one of the most rustic yet beautiful voices in rock and roll on a fairly jam packed Fremantle Art Centre crowd.

Poptastic Sydney Five piece Amy Meredith were served as an entree, and the taste was delightful, running through Porn Star and a more-fun-than-a-jumping-castle version of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

After a short break, the lights dimmed and the lads of Stereophonics took up their instruments, with a “How you doing?” they launched into One Thousand Trees and Words Get Around.

Superman was the first track to lift the tempo with the groovers in the crowd getting their sexy dancing on. It was also a chance for the band to rock out and lead man Kelly Jones to show he can do beautiful gravely vocals to dark RnR at the drop of a hat.

Sentimental favourite Pick a Part That’s New had the budding camera phone filmers in the crowd holding their Nokias up high for after show memories, while Maybe Tomorrow had all the ex-pats embracing and thinking of home, and there were a lot of them, Welsh flags were waving proudly in the crowd all night long.

A beautiful acoustic rendition of I Wanna Be Your Dog mesmerised, before the familiar “ba, ba, ba da da’s” of Have a Nice Day had the whole crowd singing along in one of the best feel good moments of the night, simply awesome.

“This one’s for all you Welsh people in the crowd” introduced The Bartender and the Thief which had all nationalities present rocking out, there was even a flower in the crowd getting their groove on – You’ve gotta love people who fancy dress for such occasions.

After over two hours of amazing vocals, and totally awesome rock and roll, all things had to come to an end. “We are Stereophonics, thank you for having us. This song is called Dakota ” and after a jolting rendition of what was clearly a personal anthem for more than one person in the crowd, we made our way for the gates, still singing “made me feel like the one” which Stereophonics had most definitely done.

Find yourself in Williamb’s gallery