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Liverpool, University, 5 October 2005 By Paula Well, I'm back home now and still deaf from the Liverpool concert - serves me right for being near the front and centre I guess It was a mild evening, so queueing up for over an hour beforehand wasn't a chore and got to speak to a couple of girls who were fond of pogoing right in front of me during the uptempo choruses...mildly amusing I must say. I was 10th in line and had ticket number 17 for the stats freaks amongst you. My only niggle - possibly being related to being close to the stage - was that the sound system was very loud indeed so by the time Robert Post had finished his support, my ears were indeed ringing. As usual (and I know I sound like Victor Meldrew when I say this), the drums were too dominant in the mix (it happens at virtually every concert I go to!), but we launched off with a storming "I Don't Want A Lover", so by then, I didn't care much about the hearing loss Set list roughly matched other gigs earlier in the tour - the cover this time was the Scissor Sisters "Take Your Mama Out", plus we got Peter Kay coming on during one of the two encores to duet with Sharleen on "Sweet Caroline" of all things. No Paul Buchanan on "Sleep" - one of the guitarists ably filled in his role. Sharleen was on top form with her audience banter (and yes we got to her the f-word a few times from her - something I can't remember from albums, videos or TV appearances) - the funniest perhaps being when an idiot bloke near the front shouted "Get yer t*ts out", so Sharleen dragged him on stage and got *him* to show his t*ts instead! Sharleen wore the same outfit as the Glasgow gig (cap included, but that and the jacket came off fairly early into the set). It was noticable that a lot of the crowd didn't know the new album material other than "Getaway" and "Can't Resist" because they sung the words to virtually everything in the back catalogue. Also notable that there were tons of people with camera phones holding them to take shots/movies of Sharleen - she stared into some of them so people could get a Kodak moment. One slightly strange "move" Sharleen performed repeatedly was putting her hand over her crotch (not moving it around, thank goodness) - I just kept thinking of Michael Jackson for some reason. Texas appeared for 1 hour and 50 minutes and hosted a pretty good show all round. Perhaps "Summer Son" didn't quite work for me live (it's quite a complexly-layered track that didn't really have the oomph it needed - the pogoing girls loved it though...) and "Sleep" and "Nevermind" from the new album aren't the greatest numbers Texas have ever written, but I went home happy and tired and the steep 25 pounds price was, on reflection, well worth it |