The Courteeners @ O2 Academy - 19 March 2010

The Courteeners are something of a guilty pleasure for me. Mancunian indie rock with distinctly chavtastic themes, but so catchy that it puts dreary bands like Oasis to shame. I’ve never been a big fan of the Manchester indie scene; the accent does nothing for me and far too many try to be like the aforementioned Oasis, but Courteeners are actually much more like Sheffield’s own Arctic Monkeys than anything else.

23inertia and I first saw them way back in 2008 at Magna at the Love Music, Hate Racism rally, organised by Reverend & The Makers’ frontman Jon McClure. 23inertia was so impressed that she did the unthinkable and purchased the album from iTunes, DRM and all, rather than wait for a trip to town to buy the CD.

The band came to Sheffield as part of the tour for their new album, Falcon. It’s a world apart from their first offering, St. Jude, and manages to avoid second-album-syndrome altogether. The music is more melodic, with a lighter, more melancholic feel, and the whole thing hangs together wonderfully. I’ve already learned most of the words, and I haven’t even looked at the little book yet.

So yes, looking forward to this gig quite a lot. And we weren’t disappointed. Sensibly locating ourselves up on the balcony at the Sheffield O2 Academy, we had a great view, could hear perfectly, and best of all weren’t in the path of the flying pints so favoured by the scruffy urchins downstairs. The support band weren’t much cop and went for volume over quality, but once they’d gone away everything got much better. As a bit of a random aside, there were a couple of women walking about with plates of crisp sandwiches. I’m assured that one of them was Marmite flavour. It was suggested that this might have been a ploy to prevent the obviously under-age audience from getting too drunk. Who knew that crisp sandwich would ever be an hors d’oeuvre?

When the band first took to the stage, frontman Liam Fray was sporting a shaggy haircut and a pair of shades. I was rather concerned at the apparent attempt to resemble another, far less affable fellow named Liam, but fortunately my fears were unfounded. The shades were soon gone and, as I was inspired to comment to my co-giggers, he actually looks like a very pleasant young man.

The main set contained a mix of new and old material, with some classics being inserted between the new material they were there to showcase. This was done very well, and provided the crowd with familiar material between the newer stuff they might not have known yet. Even then, I was surprised at how well the crowd knew the newer material, even though the album hasn’t been out long.

One problem with a band such as this is the type of people who are attracted to the event. Being on the balcony was definitely the place to be as the crowd below seemed to revel in soaking each other in beer and throwing each other about. Quite how they afford to spend £3.50 on a pint only to throw it at somebody’s t-shirt I don’t know, but there you go. And of course, they absolutely love the word “fuck”. Every single time a line containing the word came up, the whole downstairs surged forward as one ... “It’s got FUCK ALL to do with me ...”

Once the main set was over with, the band disappeared, but Liam hung about and played a solo set of 5 or 6 songs. These were the quieter ones of both albums. The Rest Of The World Has Gone Home is a favourite of mine, and the classics Please Don’t and Yesterday, Today, & Probably Tomorrow were thrown in for good measure. This was my favourite part of the whole gig. The songs are strong enough to stand up on an album, live with the full band, or just a solo guitarist singing on an otherwise deserted stage.

Again, he disappeared, but moments later he was back again. Two encores! This time he brought the whole band with him and played what are arguably their most popular tracks, and 23inertia’s favourites, Not Nineteen Forever and You Overdid It Doll. They finished up with What Took You So Long? and wrapped up a very well played set.