The The

Venue:

The Halls Wolverhampton

Date: 27/09/2024

You may notice there’s no The The in the photo. For his first tour in six years Matt Johnson spent his first minute onstage entreating the audience not to take any photos. It mostly worked, and despite checking my own desire for a souvenir snap I enjoyed not looking at the band through someone’s phone camera standing in front of me.

Next move was an object lesson in serving audience expectations around a storied back catalogue while also giving the new album its due. We got a set of two halves: the first half (‘the listening set’) being the entire new album played, the second half being the classics. Now why don’t more artists in a similar position do this. Artist gets everyone to listen to the new stuff without worrying that there won;t be enough time for This Is The Day or Infected.

Ensoulment sees Matt Johnson in a mellow, autumnal mood. Its twelve songs, immaculately played live, cover topics such as trump (Kissing The Ring of Potus), the death of his dad (Where Do we Go When We die) and online dating (Zen and the art of dating). Apart from digressions on schooling and Jamboree Bags – an intro to the clumsily titled ‘I want you to remember the things I can’t forget’ – Johnson whips his band of four quickly through the tracks. Johnson’s band are uniformly excellent and the sound at The Halls after it’s mega refurb retains the clarity and warmth The Civic was famous for.

After a fifteen minute interval we’re back for the classics, and a triple punch of Infected, Armageddon Days and The Sinking Feeling shifts the crowd instantly from respectful listeners to enthusiastic participants. It’s pretty fantastic all the way to a monumental Sweet Bird of Truth and a great Lonely Planet.Encores – Uncertain Smile, with longstanding keyboard player DC Collard absolutely storming the famous Jools Holland solo. First album closer Giant is also the ‘all together’ set closer.

As well as Collard a special mention to guitarist Barrie Cadogan who manages to encompass the many eras of The The. It’s perhaps no accident that there’s nothing from Mindbomb: the Marr shadow is long. We do get Slow Emotion Replay off Dusk and he makes a fair fist of Marr’s sinuous and chiming part.

The audience:

My age, late forties to early sixties. A lot of thinning hair and a fair few straining band t-shirts.

It made me think..

In his early sixties Johnson doesn’t have to do this, so very grateful for a chance to see someone whose albums have been a constant companion. I checked with someone who knows the venue well and The Halls (Civic as was) is even when ‘sold out’ very roomy compared to, for example, the Academy venues in Birmingham where sold out equals sardine room only.

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