Live review: The Sunshine Underground @ Foundry, Sheffield, 4/4/11.
Out of all the albums that soundtracked my life in 2006/07, The Sunshine Underground’s Raise The Alarm is one of the few I’d still regard as being a great album (along with Larrikin Love’s The Freedom Spark, for example). Last time I saw them play it was to a sold out Leeds Academy in March 2009, this time around it’s to a half full students union.
Still, this doesn’t impact on the band or the crowd. Kicking off with ‘Wake Up’, the crowd quickly get into it and the rest of the gig proceeds in fine fashion. The band are energetic as always and the crowd responds accordingly. “Mosh pits” (note the inverted commas) for ‘The Way It Is’ and the traditional, and rather spine tingling, mass singalong for ‘Boarders’. ‘I Aint Losing Any Sleep’ and, of course, set closer ‘Put You In Your Place’ are also highlights.
The set it is a little short for my liking and the lack of ‘Commercial Breakdown’ is disappointing, but it’s varied nicely between the bands two albums as well as including two new songs that song rather promising. They are a hard band to fault live, they play fantastically, yet throw in just a touch of improvisation at times to make it feel like more than just the studio recordings but louder.
In my naive teenaged years I thought The Sunshine Underground were one of the best in the business. I still do.
Sean Collison
Notes
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