Stereophonics @ Wembley Arena, London
16th November 2008
Gathering a sizable group of gig goers is a big job, especially this evening where people had to travel from as far afield as Sheffield to the home of football in North London! This factor and cheap beers in the pub both contributed to our late arrival at the newly renovated Wembley Arena. The lateness turned into our/my favour as it happens as we timed it brilliantly to miss the opening act The Enemy, which I was greatly relieved about.
Now, it’s been a while since I’ve been to see a band big enough to warrant an arena tour and the Stereophonics have been one such band for a long while. Having a back catalogue of 6 albums, 2 of them classics, 2 Average and 2 Horrid you would be slightly nervy of a mismatched set list. Nevertheless right from the get go they mixed the old with the new rotating the obligatory new album material around the highlights of their previous hit singles. The newer material was pretty flat and it was clear the crowd were only here for the hits. With so many to chose from they played most of my personal favorites ranging from The Bartender & The Thief, Vegas Two Times, A Thousand Trees, and Local Boy In A Photograph .
It was a pretty routine run through of the hits, but from one cracking moment mid set when front man Kelly Jones stood alone with his guitar strumming through a melody of acoustic treats. Have A Nice Day blended into Maybe Tomorrow which quickly morphed into a superb stirring rendition of Traffic.
Rounding off the night in grand fashion with their stellar track Dakota they faded into the night after championing another bout of their knockout greatest hits!
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