Mostly Autumn

Trillians, Newcastle

18 October 2002

Newcastle really needs a better small venue. If a band can't fill a big hall (and let's face it, Mostly Autumn aren't in that league yet), they play Trillians: the worst-sounding venue I've ever been in. For an in-your-face hard rock act, it's not such a big problem. For Mostly Autumn's more intricate music, it's a nightmare. For the entire first song, all I could hear was drums. And the band indicated that they couldn't hear themselves either, so the harmony vocals (an important part of their sound) suffered. And through the quieter songs, the PA squeals and pops. Very annoying

Trillians offsets this by having a fantastic crowd. The place was full; not packed, but a nice change from 18 months ago when there were more people on stage than in the audience. And at £10 a ticket it's more of a dedicated crowd than the normal pub crowd. Most people seemed to know the songs and even anticipated what was coming next (when the girls picked up recorders, everybody shouted for Shrinking Violet...).

The band played very well, for about 2 hours (45 minutes first set, break (the main reason seems to be for Heather to change her costume!), 60 minutes second set, 15 minute encore). The set was mostly rock numbers, and I would have liked to hear some of their more folky stuff, but they played all of my favourites so I can't really complain.

Summary: great band, good crowd, lousy venue. But probably the best concert I've ever been to.