Lush : The Camden Roundhouse - Sat 7th May 2016

Having made their live debut in Camden at the Falcon in 1988 as a five-piece with Pale Saints Meriel Barham on lead vocals…Meriel left and Miki Berenyi took over as lead vocalist and the rest is history..so it was quite apt that they chose the Roundhouse to return to from their US tour. Their tour of America had been unfortunately hampered by visa problems which lead to them cancelling a few shows and only managing a bit of the Coachella festival…despite this the gigs in Seattle and San Francisco lead to rave reviews…I was really excited about this gig…to be honest I didn’t think that this day could get any better than it already had been…I was wrong!!

Middlesbrough had been promoted back to the Premier league earlier in the day so the alcohol had been flowing quite freely from before lunch!!! After joining the Middlesbrough Supporters South promotion afterparty we headed off to Camden for something to eat and more of the same.

The sun well and truly had its hat on and a combination of Guinness, Prosecco and an amazing few glasses of Rum in ‘The Cuban’ in Camden Market had us in good spirits so to speak.

Unfortunately by the time we got into the Roundhouse…well…by the time I managed to finish off my orange-based liqueur cocktail (rocket fuel tastes nicer) from across the road at Joe’s Cocktail bar…the support band the Spectres were just about done.

This was my first time at the Roundhouse and my first thought was “this place is amazing!!!”.

This was a place that my dad went to in his teens when he was travelling with his band and always said was the best gig venue he’d ever been to…it had also been the only venue that my favourite band The Doors had played in the UK throughout 1968…Jimi Hendrix played there along with Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones…this was on my list of places to go to…I tried not to look at pictures of the place before hand…and soaked it all up when I got there…it’s cavernous…had a feel of the pantheon about it . Although the night before had been a sell out…the Saturday wasn’t…and I think I preferred it that way on my first visit. I’m not saying that it was empty…far from it…it was just that it was easy getting drinks and getting close to the stage without people bumping into you every five minutes.

I got the feeling from this gig that this isn’t just an “in it for the money” tour but as a “we are back” look at what we can still do! With the band as a separate entity…having kids and different day jobs they seem to be back with a refreshed vigour that could spark into something pretty special…with their new single ‘Out Of Control’ from the Blind Spot EP getting an airing it doesn’t sound out of place frm their back catelogue…to be honest after this gig they could do anything they want…their power to hold a crowd is still there along with their emotional pull on the heartstrings that they had in the early 90s…Lush are still a very important band to a lot of people.

Phil King’s bass still rang true and accompanied the guitars impeccably along with Justin Welch (ex-Elastica) on the drums…but it’s the two ladies at the forefront that are quite mesmerising…even though to be fair from the position we were stood in (far right of stage at the front) Miki and Emma were the only people that we could see on the stage.

Miki is quite an open and honest kind of front woman…loved the way she apologised to anyone who had been there the night before…as she had obviously worn the same clothes…stopped herself from saying similar things…and that the “hangover from hell” she was suffering from was still a cause for concern.

Lush were a band that I had seen twice in my home town in the 90s…both times at the Arena…albeit 4 years apart they were both memorable and came away in a bit of a musical daze. One of my main memories of them though was when I was at Uni forcing myself to stay in and write up my 1st year chemistry practical’s with joss-sticks burning …half full can of John Smiths and ‘Gala’ and ‘Split’ reverberating around my room…saying that…maybe points to the fact of why I never made it into 2nd year….although the picture below probably explains why I didn’t make it even more!

Even when I saw them in the 90s though…I never found them to be a band that I would surge into the mosh pit and lose myself for an hour…they were an amazing emotional experience that I find difficult to put down into words. I know I’m older now but the experience was just the same in the Roundhouse as it was 20 or more years earlier.

De-Luxe is my favourite Lush song…and in the Roundhouse it tore at my heartstrings and the emotion came flooding back..it was really difficult to stop myself from welling up…didn’t try hard enough…I admit…tears were in my eyes.

Lush’s back catalogue of songs is as strong as any reformed band from the 90s…with Breeze…Hypocrite…Etherial…Ladykillers…Sweetness and Light…all played out beautifully with Miki never missing a chance to chat to the adoring crowd…every little quip was met with smiles and chuckles. All the songs that I wanted to hear again were played…apart from ‘Single Girl’ that I thought might have been played during their encore but never seemed to happen…I’m sure that there are songs that the band don’t like playing for whatever reason but It didn’t stop me from taking everything from this gig that I wanted and more.