Stereophonics thrill a full house at Atelier

By Patrick Cameron

On Thursday night Stereophonics sold out den Atelier for the fourth time in seven years. Not bad for a band you’d thought peaked over a decade ago.

Although having recently released their ninth studio album “Keep The Village Alive”, Stereophonics are on a high again after topping the charts in the UK for the first time since 2007. They are now in the middle of a European tour before they head back to the UK for an arena tour at the end of the year. With frontman Kelly Jones looking like he has barely aged a day in the last ten years, it feels like we’re back in the mid 2000s when this type of success was commonplace for the band.

Opening the evening to an already packed Atelier was local band Austinn who only a few weeks ago played their first ever show in Luxembourg, now they are playing Atelier, not a bad couple of weeks for the guys. They put on an energetic display of indie pop, which sounds like they’re heavily influenced by late 2000s indie scene from the likes of Bloc Party to the delivery and hooky elements of Pigeon Detectives. What they’re doing, they’re doing well but it’s certainly nothing new.

Having recently released a new album the crowd fully expected some fairly unfamiliar tracks and they didn’t have to wait long as Stereophonics kicked off the evening with new songs “I Wanna Get Lost With You” followed by “C’est La Vie”. It’s never easy to tour a new album but when you have such obvious crowd pleasers as “C’est La Vie” it helps.

The set was littered with tracks spanning their almost 20 year career reminding us all in the process what a great songwriter Kelly Jones is and just how many singles he’s written.

Whilst tracks from the earlier albums such as “A Thousand Trees” and “Mr Writer” clearly remain firm fan favourites, they’re still producing enough on the new records to keep the old faithful happy. The likes of “Mr & Mrs Smith” keep to a tried and tested formula whilst building to drum solo crescendo at the end. There is still an energy about them on stage and a freshness which comes with the new songs.

They introduced some blues into the evening with “Been Caught Cheating” which was where Jones showed his vocals are as unique and powerful as ever. Then a sure-fire sing-along with “Maybe Tomorrow”, with which the crowd sang back with gusto.

Whilst many acts rely heavily on their back catalogue to keep the night flowing, Stereophonics still manage to produce enough singles off each album to keep things progressing. They even finished on “Catacomb” which holds up to any of their earlier material.

Of course there would still be an encore, which would include “Just Looking”, “Bartender and The Thief” and their biggest hit “Dakota” which awoke one audience member near me into jumping frenzy, having barely moved most of the evening, oh the power of the nostalgic hit.

Take a read of Patrick Cameron's other reviews in his very own dossier:   Patrick's concert news & reviews 

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