Every year the Forestry commission put on a series of outdoor concerts at various different woods and forests across the UK and this year they have booked the likes of UB40, Paloma Faith, George Ezra, Kasabian, The Script, Paul Heaton And Jacqui Abbott and Gary Barlow to play special outside shows at their venues across the country.
Tonight I headed down to Westonbirt Arboretum to watch The Script open the four day event at the forest which will see them, Paul Heaton And Jacqui Abbott, Paloma Faith and George Ezra play to thousands of people over the next four days.
The Script don’t really need any introduction as they are super stars across the UK who have released 5 studio albums since their formation back in 2007 and have played various sold out shows at the biggest venues across the UK including the 20,000 capacity O2 Arena in London as well as playing major festivals such a V Festival, Isle Of Wight, T On The Park and many more.
At 9pm sharp The Script took to the stage to screams from thousands of fans who had travelled from all over the country to see their favourite band play in such a special location surrounded by trees and they wasted no time playing the hits by opening with ‘Superheroes’ a track which happens to be the lead single from their fourth studio album ‘No Sound Without Silence’ and this went down a storm with the audience with people dancing along, singing along, bopping their feet, clapping their hands and filming on their phone so they will never forget the occasion.
This was followed on perfectly by newish song ‘Rock The World’ which is taken from the band’s latest album ‘Freedom Child’ which saw the crowd carry on the momentum they started with the opening track ‘Superheroes’ with the majority of the fans at the front bouncing up and down singing-a-long with frontman Danny O’Donoghue.
Early on in the set Danny O’Donoghue decided that he wanted to get closer to his fans so towards the end of the third song ‘Paint The Town Green’ he decided to jump down from the stage and run down to the barrier to preform whilst also briefly meeting and greeting his fans and after a couple of minutes he noticed of member of the crowd wearing a cardboard cut-out mask of him which was soon handed to him before he returned to the stage to finish the song wearing the mask.
As the set progressed The script carried on playing the hits and entertaining their fans, with ‘No Man Is An Island’ and ‘The Energy Never Dies’ proving to be high points of the set with ‘No Man Is An Island’ seeing the crowd get split down the middle and encouraged to battle each other to see which side could move the most and sing the loudest, whilst ‘No Man Is An Island’ saw Danny O’Donoghue leave the stage again but this time run right down the middle of the crowd with a head torch on as he ran right past the sound and lighting desk putting everything into his performance as the fans reached for their phones in an attempt to catch a good photo of their musical hero.
Through the set Danny O’Donoghue kept making jokes about the weather saying that normally when they play outside shows it rains and he was surprised it hasn’t rained yet and every time he spoke about this he then quickly had to tell the crowd that no we are not playing ‘Rain’ next however right at the end of the set the moment to play ‘Rain’ came with Danny O’Donoghue shouting out to the crowd are you ready for the ‘Rain’ now which they clearly was judging by the huge sing-a-longs from the crowd.
After a short break The Script came back on stage for a three song encore which consisted of ‘No Good In Goodbye’, ‘Breakeven’ and the song that everyone had been waiting for ‘Hall Of Fame’ which saw everyone slowly walking back to their cars humming and singing-a-long to the pure infectious song which topped the charts way back in 2012.
One of best things about The Forestry Commission shows compared to your normal gigs and festivals is the relaxed nature, the fact you can bring your camping chair, you can bring a picnic and also a selection of drinks or buy from the various food and drink vendors located on the site and that’s what a lot of people did tonight and it was good to see people who were lifelong friends and people who had only just met sharing food and drink and having a good laugh whilst watching live music, which let’s face it is one of the best things about the British summer.
Overall The Script were fantastic tonight and you could clearly see why Danny O’Donoghue was picked to be a judge on The Voice back in 2012 and 2013 as he is so confident and a true entertainer who is not only full of energy but also full of talent, the 16 song set The script played tonight was a true greatest hits set and one that the fans won’t be forgetting in a hurry.
The Script - 5/5
Review By Trigger |
Danny O'Donoghue