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| Levellers
-
The
Engine Shed - LUSU - Lincoln
- 20 May 2007
[Buy
Artist's Tickets] Rolling
around the Lincoln
ring road following my Google map/direction finder, I thought I was never
going to reach the venue, but eventually after heading in what seemed to
be completely the wrong direction for 20 minutes I followed the final
instruction - After 94 feet, stop - and I arrived in The Engine Shed’s
car park. After
a brief exchange of “Hello, how ya doin’s” with Mark Chadwick (who
was presumably being shown back to where he should’ve been by an Engine
Shed employee) in the car park, which at least proved I wasn’t late, I
was ushered into the venue. The
Engine Shed is not what I was expecting at all. An apparently newly
built-for-purpose, rather than an old, engine shed, it looked like a sort
of mini-NEC arena and was superb - With the sad exception of the security
people, who seemed to think they were working at the NEC. Catching
the last couple of numbers from the support act while queuing for a beer
didn’t do much for me but I should have paid more attention as just as I
was beginning to get into their last song, it was over. I didn’t even
catch what they were called. While
waiting for the Levellers
to appear I spent the next fifteen minutes with my feet slowly gluing
themselves to the dance floor. I’ve known sticky dance floors before, The
Levellers
unexpectedly appeared high above the stage and descended a staircase like
Gods descending to earth. We were taken straight into “100 Years Of
Solitude” and the venue exploded. The mosh pit rocked, the “No Crowd
Surfing” signs were ignored and a rather younger audience than is
currently the norm at a Levellers
gig went for it big style. One
of the benefits of seeing a band more than once on the same tour is that
you can be pretty certain of which song is coming up next. When
“Forgotten Ground” started I thought they’d reworked the setlist,
but it had just been moved slightly. The
thing about this evening was that every track sounded even more powerful
and full of energy than is usually the case. Whether it was to do with the
newness of the venue and the sound system I don’t know, but whatever
happened it inspired the Levellers to even greater heights than usual. Boaksey
was in attendance again tonight and treated us to his usual manic stage
antics during “One Way”, Mark introducing him as “My Girlfriend”
and planting a sloppy kiss on his lips. “Forgotten
Ground” got the prize for unexpectedly fast track of the night as the
band went through the speedy parts even faster than they usually do. What
a changed beast this song is to when it was welcomed back to the setlist a
couple of years ago as “Forgotten The Words”. Marvellous stuff. Banter
with the audience was at a minimum tonight as the band were slick and
tight, powering their way confidently through the set, the audience baying
for more during the breaks. “Come
On” blew me away and rocked the venue into “Burford Stomp” and
“Carry Me”. As
the band returned for an encore, they slowed it down for “Another
Man’s Cause” and then sped it up again to an even faster pace for
“The Riverflow” and “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”, Jon’s bow
seeming to almost set fire to the strings of his fiddle. After
another short break we were treated to an even faster than normal “What
You Know” and then, to my dismay, that was it. It
seemed like Two
questions remain; Why
was Jon hitting Simon over the head with his fiddle bow and; Which
festival dates have I got tickets for again? Setlist
(approximate running order) © Livemusicreview 2007 |
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