Courteeners, O2 Academy Birmingham - review
Courteeners have cemented a reputation as one of the UK's biggest indie outfits of the 21st Century.
They've rallied an adoring army of fans since their break onto the scene in 2008 which is pretty impressive considering their sheer lack of mainstream radio play.
Last night the quartet brought their Northern swagger and sing-a-long anthems to the O2 Academy in Birmingham as part of 12 night UK tour.
The gig follows the release of their fifth studio album Mapping The Randezvous.
Kicking off the evening, What's The Story Morning Glory? of Manc predecessors Oasis blared through the speakers as the boys made their entrance - albeit half an hour late due to bad traffic.
They dove into Are You In Love With A Notion? before moving through crown pleasers Cavorting and Lose Control.
One thing Courteeners can always guarantee is an killer live show, which is exactly what the faithful crowd were treated to.
Their gigs including an iconic set at Leeds Festival this year have become infamous for skies filled with colourful smoke.
Let's just say the smoke bomb amnesty bins didn't pay off as one went off minutes into the gig - needless to say they were dragged out the 3,000 capacity venue within seconds.
New songs Lucifer's Dreams and Modern Love were met with a sterling response as they stormed through St Jude classic Bide Your Time and Small Bones off of fourth album Concrete Love.
The set closed with slow starter The 17th off the new album but the youthful crowd soon started bouncing as the song neared it's end.
Liam Fray's colleagues then left the frontman on stage to treat fans to slow solo acoustic renditions of De La Salle, Please Don't and Smiths Disco courtesy of numerous requests from the crowd.
For a lot of bands the amount of songs they played was more than you'd expect but there was no stopping Courteeners quite yet.
The band reunited with Liam before emotionally smashing their three final tunes of the night with Acrylic, the euphoric Not Nineteen Forever and What Took You So Long?
The boisterous set is everything you'd expect from the Manchester band and more.
With a homecoming gig at the Old Trafford cricket ground next June there's a lot more to come from those boys from Manchester.
God bless the band.
By Tom Oakley
