I went to see Delays at the Concorde II this Wednesday, and here’s my review. Comments welcome… the opinons expressed are only those of the author 😉
Delays debut album, “Faded Seaside Glamour” is, without any exaggeration one of the albums that has helped shape my state of mind and my attitude to music since I discovered the band last year. In my opinion it’s one of the very few albums which is close to perfect in terms of its songs, mood and execution, infused with a warm nostalgia, the sort that you can wake up to, and with a lead singer whose voice is nothing short of incredible and instantly memorable. That said, Delays playing live had a lot to live up to! I’ve been stung once recently, another band who have made a hugely evocative and distinctive album, Engineers, having failed completely to reproduce that sound live. They instead created a fuzzy wall of noise that would have been somewhat cool if I had been able to make out anything of the songs behind it… it remains the only concert I have ever walked out of, although I still play the album regularly and would recommend it to anyone, its a disappointment that took a while to get over… Thankfully, Southampton band Delays were far better than that on the penultimate leg of their UK tour. To be honest, I thought the sound quality in the venue left something to be desired, in particular detracting from the subtle quieter tracks and the quality of lead singer Greg Gilbert’s voice, whereas the more rock oriented songs sounded OK. But given that, Delays are still a great live band. From the reactions of the crowd (including an outbreak of crowd surfing) it was clear that I’m not the only person who feels strongly about this group. A large proportion of the set was made up of songs from ‘FSG’, and it was exciting to hear these songs live. A solo version of ‘Bedroom Scene’ from Greg was a memorable moment, but they left the best for last with a seamless encore that was definitely the highlight of their set.
I suspect many more people will know who they are very soon- though their new material is much more in the pop direction than their older tracks. I don’t yet own the album “You See Colours” and as a result the new tracks obviously don’t yet possess the same multiple layers of meaning for me as the old ones do, equally their new direction has involved an obvious trade-off between immediacy and the fragile subtlety of their debut. Nevertheless, the tracks they played were upfront and instantly addictive, and Greg Gilbert has lost nothing of his inventiveness and incredible talent for melody. It’s clear that this is a band with ambition and belief- as it says on their website, they “want to redefine British pop music in their own image”. I’ll really have to wait until I’ve heard the whole of the new album to judge this, but at the moment I think they are in with a chance.
