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If I was 10-15 years younger I would love to be in The Coral.  60s influenced yet never merely derivative with excellent musical interplay between the seven group members, they are probably my favourite current band.  For this first live viewing, they were excellent at times without ever really being brilliant…

The problem with The Coral live experience is that they are essentially a studio band.  Quite shy onstage rather than extrovert live performers, they replicate their deceptively complex records excellently but only once, on She Sings The Mourning, did they really extend the studio version.  This doesn’t really matter though when the songs and playing are this good…

The set list consisted almost entirely of songs from their eponymous debut album and most recent long-player The Invisible Invasion with only three tracks featured from their superb second LP Magic & Medicine.  Most Coral songs contain a mixture of dark, early Pink Floyd influenced psychedelia and Mersey-beat influenced pop and, though the set was generally biased towards the former, Pass It On and Dreaming Of You featured from the latter category.  Other highlights included a chilling Operator, quirky Shadows Fall, poppy Something Inside Of Me and trippy Goodbye.  For the more psychedelic tracks, strobes and other period lighting effects were used to good effect as well as dated animations on the backdrop.

The Coral’s playing and the interplay between the members of the band was superb to create an excellent sound.  It’s a shame that they didn’t play a bit longer than one and a quarter hours though with their no nonsense approach, a good 20 songs were featured.  All in all an excellent gig – now if only I was a bit younger…

11.11.05