Stereophonics play it safe on return to Manchester’s MEN Arena

Mar 8 2010 by Paul Mannion, Chester Chronicle

WAILING guitar solos, thunderous drumming and the screaming sound of Kelly Jones’ lung busting vocals ripped through Manchester’s MEN Arena last night.

On a night of nostalgic highs and lulling lows The Stereophonics played their seventh arena date in Manchester but to all intents and purposes you could have been at any of those gigs in the city.

Despite new album Keep Calm and Carry On promising to “up the bar” – their fifth release in the last decade – it was the songs that brought the band to the forefront of British guitar music that saved the capacity crowd from a sleepy Sunday night.

A new look Stereophonics took to the stage, now with a full time keyboard player and talented lead guitarist Adam Zindani, and the five piece sounded as in tune and on form as ever but were well in their comfort zone.

The band played a combination of classic hits from more than a decade at the top – with Local Boy in the Photograph, Traffic, and Just Looking going down a storm it’s easy to forget how many anthems the band have penned– but were found wanting by safe sounding, album filling, misses from their newest release.

Jones’ latest lyrics sound tired, formative, and repetitive more insipid than inspired on She’s Alright, Beerbottle, and Trouble but his army of enthusiastic fans lapped it up all the same.

The Stereophonics’ place in music history was secured years ago and on the evidence of the Manchester date their performance live remains second to none.

But to borrow a line from Jones’s song Trouble – “I’m in trouble, deep deep trouble, someone burst our bubble” – perhaps their number’s up?