REVIEW: The Charlatans

The Engine Rooms

By Richard Derbyshire

INDIE LEGENDS The Charlatans returned to Southampton in spectacular style almost twenty six years to the day since they first played in the city.

Warming up for a Far East and Australian tour next month, the psychedelic band delighted the heaving capacity crowd at The Engine Rooms on West Quay Road with a fantastic set of songs.

Band members Tim Burgess, guitarist Mark Collins, bassist Martin Blunt and keys player Tony Rogers, alongside drummer Pete Salisbury, launched straight into Talking in Tones, the first release from their latest and outstanding top ten album Modern Nature.

North Country Boy and Tellin’ Stories were as popular as ever, but it was two other new numbers, Let the Good Times Be Never Ending and Emilie, which took things to an even higher level.

Last week Tim told The Southern Daily Echo that the epic six minute Good Times was already “like an old classic” and it was clear that the band’s devoted fans agreed.

“It’s good to be back” he added after bouncing around the small stage to an uplifting version of Just When You’re Thinking Things Over.

The frontman still fondly remembers the band’s first gig in Southampton at The Joiners when hundreds of people queued out on the street hoping to get in. After The Engine Rooms concert he returned to the St Mary Street venue for an intimate after show party DJ set.

The brilliant The Only One I know was on the 1990 Joiners set list and, with its trademark Hammond Organ interlude, it still sounds as good as ever today. Incredibly, Radio X DJ Jack Oliver even coincidentally played it at the time when most fans were travelling down to the show.

The swaggeringly confident One to Another was another tremendous single from the band’s seminal 1997 album Tellin’ Stories and it received an almost riotous welcome.

All too soon the band finished, as ever, with a close to spiritual performance of Sproston Green.

Songs from latest album Modern Nature have the signs of being modern classics. The album is a wonderful tribute to drummer Jon Brookes who died in 2013 just as the band were starting to put it together.

With tickets selling out in only a few hours, this gig was a massive coup for the fledging Engines Rooms, barely a year after it opened. This was an outstanding show. The Charlatans are still one of the greatest bands in Britain.

Latest album Modern Nature is available on ITunes. More at thecharlatans.net, Twitter and Facebook.

PHOTOS BY DAWN FLETCHER-PARK