Review: The Zutons, Newcastle Carling Academy
Nov 25 2008 by Michael Brown, The Journal
DESPITE the cold and the melting snow, the queue was stretching down the block.
But it seemed the crowd weren’t the only ones that needed to get warmed up.
By the time the Zutons hit the stage, more than two hours after their first support act burst into their Oasis meets county-and-western set, the crowd seemed weary if well oiled.
During the early songs, sporadic clapping broke out among a quarter of the audience but the rest looked on bemused by some of the tracks plucked from the band’s latest album.
Even Abi Harding, the group’s sexy saxophonist, lacked the raw sexuality of norm clothed as she was in what appeared to be a figure-hugging pleated blue sheet.
And there’s the rub. As a spectacle the Zutons seemed a little too clinical. They turned up, they played their songs. Every move choreographed and performed like a money-making machine.
The band seemed to be merely going through the motions.
A mid-set rendition of Valerie briefly raised the mood but the energy levels in the room quickly dropped in its aftermath and by the encore’s extended drum solo, some people were already eyeing their exit.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the Zutons live is when they are forced to return to replay tracks – a sure sign of the lack of depth in their armoury and a failure to innovate.
While some diehards left claiming the evening was near perfect, for the uninitiated there was little to inspire.
Now, two albums on from their major hits, you have to question where the Zutons go from here.
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