On The The Waterfront

The The
The Waterfront
Norwich
22/08/2024

I still listen to the albums 'Infected' (one of my fave albums of the 80s), ‘Mind Bomb’, ‘Soul Mining’ and ‘Dusk’ on a regular basis and have tracks from them on various playlists, the show at Norwich's Waterfront was the first chance I had to see The The and the wonderful dulcet tones of Matt Johnson live. Better than that, it was a small venue (due to it being a warm-up gig) with a capacity of 700, which makes it is one of the smaller venues of the nine UK tour dates on a summer/autumn European promo tour for the new album ‘Ensoulment’ (released 6th September). 

The Waterfront in Norwich is a small low ceilinged hot and sweaty venue that is perfect to see a band like this (Johnson even mentioned it was nice not to have air conditioning that you get in bigger venues). The venue has a low stage and plenty of restricted views because of the pillars holding the ceiling up and if you are short like me, you really have to work on getting a good view of the band. But I would much rather see a band here than in an arena. The audience (like many gigs I go to nowadays) was  predominantly over 50 and male but there were women, and it was good to see younger people liberally sprinkled around. 

The band (consisting of Barrie Cadogan on guitar, James Eller on bass, DC Collard on keyboard, Earl Harvin on drums and Matt Johnson on guitar and vocals) came on around 8.50 and from the opening number sounded really tight and acoustically excellent. They played ‘Infected’ and ‘Armageddon Days’ as the second and third numbers and by then the crowd were already buzzing and in a zone. At no point did The The feel like one of those 80s bands doing a nostalgia tour, except maybe if you spent some time looking at the audience. It did however, take me back to those wonderful days of ‘Orange Juice’, ‘The Associates’, and ‘Fad Gadget’. They played songs from across their recording lifespan so far which included the 80s and 90s tracks, but it all sounded fresh and relevant (especially the more political lyrics) and really deserved a broader demographic in the audience. If you are younger than 50, checkout the back catalogue, listen to the new album and get to a gig on the tour, you will not be disappointed, I certainly was not. 

Images by Andi Sapey