So
festival season is now officially over and the
gigs are back in full flow with cities and venues
all over the country hosting some great gigs pretty
much nightly for the rest of the year so tonight
I decided to head down to Bristol and check out
Toseland at the Fleece, a band who I originally
came across back in November 2013 when they supported
Reef on their 20th anniversary tour and I was
instantly impressed with their stage presence
and range of classic meets stadium rock songs.
The
main support band tonight were a punk meets rock
n roll band called Electric River who hail from
Ashford in Kent and from the very start of their
set they had the crowd in the palm of their hands
as they played their way through various classic
songs such as ‘In Your Name’. ‘Keep
The Engine Burning’, ‘Calling Out’,
‘Queen Of Hearts’, ‘Watersong’
and many others and in-between songs front man
Sponge spent a lot of time interacting with the
crowd which went down a treat as he told various
different stories, introduced songs and generally
thanked the crowd for their support and participation
and I
can honestly say that I will be keeping a close
eye on where they are touring in the future as
they are a great live band who showed serious
potential tonight.
Toseland took to the stage at 10pm tonight and
Zurab Melua (guitars), Rebea Massaad (guitars),
Dave Hollingworth (bass) and William Stokes (drums)
all took to the stage first and jammed constantly
for a good couple of minutes fully pleasing the
awaiting crowd with their instrumental skills
and then James Toseland stormed the stage and
kicked things off in a proper loud and energetic
way strutting his stuff on stage whilst laying
down his massive vocals.
Through
their set tonight Toseland played pretty much
the whole of their debut album ‘Renegade’
with the likes of ‘Life Is Beautiful’,
‘Gotta be A Better Way’, ‘Comin
To get Ya’, ‘Just No Way’ and
the epic ‘Singer In A Band’ really
getting the crowd moving tonight, however it was
the surprise inclusion of two new songs ‘Broken
Bones’ and ‘The Closer I Get The Less
I See’ which really pushed the boundaries
tonight as both songs came as a surprise yet both
shown great potential of what the future of Toseland
holds with ‘Broken Bones’ just taking
the edge of ‘The Closer I Get The Less I
See’ as the best of the new songs.
In-between
songs James Toseland interacted with the crowd
asking them who has seen them before, telling
them that they have some merch on sale and some
very special union jack t-shirts and then he broke
the exciting news that he has been working with
Toby Jepson again on material for their second
album which was met with such a positive reaction
from the fans in attendance.
As the show progressed the mood and pace of songs
changed as James Toseland revealed his keyboard
and beautifully played his way through ‘Kingdoms’
and various other epic keyboard numbers which
really showed
off the more serious and soft rock side of Toseland
considering that the majority of the set was full
of high octane energy with the band solidly jamming
for over an hour.
Before the show came to an end James Toseland
said to the crowd “You know the score we
are going to disappear for a few minutes as you
pretend the show is over and then we will be back
to play a couple more songs” and that happened
yet unlike most bands Toseland found time to play
a 3 song encore which featured a cover of ‘Pump
It Up’, ‘Crash Landing’ and
then the epic album title track and single ‘Renegade’
which features James Toseland playing the keyboard
for the last time of the night and the rest of
the band generally going all out as Toseland finished
off an superb night with one of their best songs
played to perfection.
When I saw Toseland support Reef back last year
I thought they were good and had potential and
after seeing them tonight they have proved just
that as they were much more tighter as a band
tonight, much more energetic and each and every
band member looked like they were having the time
of their lives throughout the 1hour and 30minute
duration of their set and for a measly £8
everyone in the crowd must have walked away thinking
all their Christmases and birthdays had all come
at once. I personally can’t wait to see
Toseland on the live circuit again but more importantly
can’t wait for that all important album
number 2 which is currently in the works.
Electric River 4/5
Toseland 5/5
Review By Trigger
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