Ocean Colour Scene: Llandudno: February 2011

So once again myself and Shake Ed Tony are heading down the A55 at breakneck speed, and considering this is one of Europe’s most dangerous roads it’s a stupid thing to be doing. But we are excited to be able tonight to see one of our favourite bands perform one of their classic albums in full… I’m talking Moseley Shoals by Ocean Colour Scene.

Now I have seen this band umpteen times in north Wales at The Tivoil, in Llandudno as well as in Liverpool, Manchester and various festivals, but tonight the excitement rides high…

We get to the coast and it’s unusually calm as usually at this time of year we’re met by a force ten hurricane, lashings of rain, freezing cold - it’s no place for the old. Tonight it feels more like a late autumn evening, with even the sea splashing in and out as if it’s not got a care, maybe it’s the OCS effect…

Inside it’s 8:50pm and Mike Peters (The Alarm/Big Country) takes to the stage armed with ‘One Guitar’. He’s local lad done good and these are his shores. He shares with us tales of Love (Hope & Strength), loss (drunk & disorderly) and 68 guns, the crowd are half-amazed and half-asleep, but as always MP delivers a precise and direct performance that we love…

MP departs and we get some cooler than cool retro tunes over the PA and it’s a welcome change from gigs where it’s all about the brand new cool - tonight it seems is just about being cool…

Lights out and ‘The Riverboat Song’ comes straight out of the gate, followed by ‘The Day We Caught The Train’ and to be honest most bands would kill just to have both these songs as the last two of the night in an encore, never mind as the opening two. They are hard songs to follow, but it’s to OCS’s credit that the rest of this amazing album just flows effortlessly on through timeless classics that just feel right at home. In fact I don’t think I’ve heard anything on the radio over the last few years that holds a candle to these songs, and that is perhaps testimony to the quality of what’s on offer here tonight…

Moseley Shoals is one of THOSE albums, like ‘All Mod Cons’, ‘What’s The Story’, ‘Urban Hymns’, ‘Exile’ and ‘Revolver’ it’s a landmark album in its time and of its time. But as the years roll by, it’s of anytime, and anywhere; these songs stand up and sound just as good as the first time you heard them. A classic album tonight performed to sound like like the studio version… Job Done…

So the band leave us, and return to remind everyone that this ain’t just no retro trip… It may be 21 years for the band, but just last year they produced one of the Shake albums of the year with ‘Saturday’ and they proceed to deliver a whole fresh new bunch of classics to a crowd that just laps up every last drop. You get the impression that even after all these years here is a band that’s not resting on it’s laurals, but in fact inspiring itself and re-inventing it’s own genre while influencing beyond those same broken walls.

It’s a shame we don’t hear as much of this great music on radio anymore because as we leave tonight we try to think of a band from the last few years who may be around in twenty plus years to play their debut or second album to a crowd this size - we simply can’t - or at least not one on national radio. It re-affirms why we do what we do, great music remains just that - forever…