From Ian Davies

Back in August I got my ticket for the gig at Liverpool and turned up on the night without realising the tour was postponed. It's a long story, but I had made a couple of changes to my own bands gigs to be there and the rescheduled date clashed again. By the time February came round I had got tickets for Manchester and by another quirk of fate was able to go to the Liverpool gig afterall.

Liverpool

     My mate and I got to the Royal Court early as we wanted to get to the front!! I have to say that the first support band Libido were nothing spectacular although their cover of the Kate Bush track "Running up that Hill" was brave to say the least. Rialto on the other hand are destined for greatness. Their songs are catchy and the two drummers gimmick which worked well in the 70's still works now. This band are well worth seeing.
     When Sleeper came on stage they didn't really look up for it but had rectified this by the third song (Lie Detector) of what seemed like a short set. It was obvious hearing the PTMY material played live that the decision to part with Diid was the correct one. Being a bass player myself it was obvious that he was not the best bassist in the world...he may not have even been the best bassist in Sleeper! The crowd at Liverpool was larger than I had expected, however, I must confess to feeling bloody old at 31 as the kids at the front must have been all of 9 years old.
     After the gig we got to meet Louise and Jon outside the venue and managed a couple of photos with them. Jon is possibly the nicest bloke you would ever meet.

continue...

:Liverpool Royal Court:
- Review-
13:02:98

It was Friday the 13th, but more importantly , it was one of Sleeper`s first concerts to promote the new album, "Pleased to meet you".

Excitement was in the air as the queue of Sleeper fans were let into the theatre. The first support band (Libido) came on, sounded quite good, then told us that they had commited an armed robbery on a petrol station, served a jail sentence, and wrote their album while they were inside! This Norweigan band sounded quite good, one of the best songs being "Overthrown" which i had already heard on Radio 1 prior to the gig.

Then Libido left the stage, we had a little wait, and then the best of the two support bands came on, Rialto, of course!

I had already heard of Rialto before i went to the gig. Their single "Untouchable" is one of my current favourites of the band, along with the b-side to that single, "Lipstick letters".

Rialto were good live. Good to get ready to see Sleeper with. The crowd loved them, and quite frankly, so did i.

Rialto vacated the stage, and the wait for Sleeper to walk onto that stage had begun. Everyone was very eager and excited to be about to see Sleeper live on stage. This was my second live experience of  Sleeper, i had seen them at the same venue in May 1996.

 Eventually, the time came. Sleeper walked on stage! The backdrop was black, there was oval shapes on either side of the stage, at first it looked like the band might of been going to walk out of them, but i thought wrong, the band walked on in the usual way.

Louise was wearing a denim jacket with a black top underneath, which she later revealed, it was a halter-neck type top. Her hair had grown from the shorter style that she had when she returned to the scene with "She`s a good girl" last year. It was more like her usual floppy fringe style.

The gig kicked into action practically straight away with "Firecracker". Obviously, at this point, the crowd, including myself, started that jumping sequence, and eventually a little crowd surfing began.

This band was not looking, acting, or sounding like a band who are about to quit, after this it was plainly obvious that Sleeper will be around for a long time yet, thankfully!

Louise showed her strength and belief in the band at the end of the gig before she sung her last song  ("Vegas"). She said "To everybody who has written about us in the last six months, f*** you. And to everybody who is here tonight, cheers!".What a whopping statement!

Everything about the gig was superb, i couldn`t fault any part of it.