Since the less than subtle tweet on Monday night of “Keep Tuesday night free” the anticipation for tonight built to the point where over 800 e-mails were sent within the half hour allotted time for ticket applicants, of which only the first around 50 were allowed entry (tickets were in pairs).
From the kick off of ‘Nothing Like You’ it’s clear that this is one of those nights everyone will claim to have been in attendance.
Frightend Rabbit keep up the pace with ‘Modern Leper’ and ‘Old Old Fashioned’, enticing many of the more oiled up members of the audience into a jig at the side of the stage.
New song ‘Scottish Winds’, from their free EP, goes down as well as an indie national anthem should with every word finding its way back towards the stage.
The band appear genuinely humbled by the crowd reaction to tracks from the arguably less than well known, first album Sing the Greys, with ‘Music Now’ leading to a mass chant along.
But even that is blown away by ‘The Loneliness and the Scream”, which leads to the full band joining each other at the front of stage hand clapping, spurring on the sing-a-long which lasts the entire duration of the encore break.
Then Scott reappears, acoustic guitar in hand, parts the crowd and leads a stripped back version of ‘Poke’, joined in harmony by the entire capacity of Sleazy’s, while sitting on the edge of the bar.
He is joined by the full band as he returns to the stage for ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ and thanks the venue and everyone there personally for supporting them, reminiscing of the first time they performed on their stage some years ago.
Its clear that ‘the night Frightened Rabbit played to 100 people in Sleazy’s’ will go down as one of those “I was there, front and centre” moments, not even the omission of ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ from the set dampens the spirits of the crowd, who leave the basement blissfully content at merely being in attendance.
Allow me to be the first to claim my spot on the fanatical fan credibility list and say that I was there, I witnessed it, front and centre, singing every note.
Words: Ryan Sharpe (Twitter: @ryn_sh)
This was such a special night and probably remains one of my favourite times seeing Frightened Rabbit or any band for that matter. The out of tune audience singing poke with Scott was magical….I only wish I could find the recording I took!
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