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The line of people stretching form the door to the Arena around the corner and down Albert Street said it all - Travis are huge at the moment and everyone was keen to get in for a good vantage point. There was a pretty sizeable Scottish contingent in attendance as well, with sing-songy accents piercing the air, Scottish flags hanging from the mezzanine level and front barrier, and of course, the obligatory soccer chants. Fortunately none of the hooligans from Euro 2000 were able to make the trip! |
| Rumanastone were doing a pretty good job of warming up the crowd with a solid set of in-offensive indie pop/rock. I have to plead ignorance as far as knowing any of their set was concerned, but the delivery was extremely tight and the tunes were very much reminiscent of Something For Kate, in terms of both song structures and chord progressions. Their sense of dynamics was also similar to SFK's, and as soon as they fuse their songwriting skills with a few more obvious hooks, Rumanastone could see themselves inhabiting the same lofty pedastal. |  |
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I must confess that until very recently (the day of the gig even!), I was one of the few to remain immune to the charms of Travis. OK, so "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" is a pleasant enough little ditty, but to these ears hardly the stuff of which legends are made. But on the strength of the tunes and all round good vibes that filled the Arena tonight, I doubt that anyone in the packed house could have gone home disappointed - myself included.
Travis took the stage to a huge response from the crowd and opened with an unfamiliar tune which threatened to grind to a halt at any stage before delivering another slightly more up-tempo number. The crowd seemed a bit bewildered but still roared their approval. But when they launched into "Writing To Reach You", the opening track from their chart-topper The Man Who three songs in, the crowd absolutely lost the plot, and perhaps the best sing-a-long gig of the year to date really hit its stride. Comparisons to The Bends-era Radiohead are inevitable, but Travis also manage to slip some humour amongst the angst, with a number of sly digs at "Wonderwalls" and other Brit-Pop related phenomena. By the end of the gig I was convinced that frontman Fran Healy has to be some sort of long-lost twin brother of Australian comic Jimeoin, such is the similarity in their demeanour and appearance. |
| From this point on Travis' set was almost a hit parade, as songs from The Man Who sat beside some older material and the as yet un-released in Australia single "Coming Around". Of course it was the better-known tracks which really got the audience salivating, from the ballad "As You Are" with it's classic 70s style lead break dripping emotion from every note, to the Pink Floyd-ish guitar tones of "As You Are", to the latest single "Driftwood", which was apparently inspired by the very un-rockstar-like chore of washing the dishes! And "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" was an audience participation highlight, with the yobs behind me jumping around in a huddle shouting at the top of their lungs in a scene which reminded me of a high-school social headbanger's circle, and Fran even leaving the crowd to sing one of the verses in true rock n' roll fashion. The riff-heavy hidden track "Saturday Evening" closed the main set, and as soon as they left the stage the soccer chanting began in earnest.
What came in the encore almost defied belief. Fran and bassist Dougie both delivered solo acoustic tunes before they both took the stage to deliver a version of Britney's "Hit Me Baby One More Time" that had everyone happily singing along and myself astonished (and slightly embarrassed) that I knew so many of the words. The rest of the band re-joined them for a run-through of The Band's classic "The Weight" before they prefaced the closing track "Happy" with a reminder to everyone to remember the Travis Social Experiment - to just nod and smile at a stranger you pass in the street everyday and help spread good vibes around the world. Judging by the smiling faces leaving the Arena after their gig, the experiment is bound to succeed.
~Kris Swales~ |
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