Think back 10 years. Yes, it may seem like a long time ago but it’s also the year that The Hoosiers came out of nowhere to get a number one album with their debut The Trick to Life. The band have gone on tour to celebrate this anniversary of their first, and most successful, album.
They were ably supported by The Zeals. There was a great moment during their supporting set where the band’s lead singer made an announcement that one of their bassists was away on tour with Rag n’ Bone Man, so they brought out The Hoosiers bassist for a cover of The Police’s ‘Roxanne’, which had the crowd partying along. This really set the tone for the rest of the night.
Another nice touch was the playlist that was on before the band took to the stage. It was made up of songs that were hits around 10 years ago, like Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ and Mika’s ‘Grace Kelly’.
Coming to the end of a month-long UK tour, the band were still in high spirits as they bounded on stage. While the intimacy of the venue meant that there wasn’t any room for fancy staging, the band walked out wearing brightly coloured clothes and holding big letters that spelt out their name. It was later revealed that they were handmade by one of their fans who was in the front row of the audience.
The show played out with them playing the entirety of The Trick to Life album first. As a result, the set was rather unusual in that it opened with their biggest hits which would be saved to close the show on any other tour.
Their biggest singles like ‘Goodbye Mr A’, ‘Worried About Ray’ and ‘Cops and Robbers’ clearly got the most ecstatic response from the audience, with everyone chanting along to the catchy choruses.
The band are still as kooky as they were 10 years ago, with the keyboardist randomly sitting and eating a banana on stage in the middle of the set and the banter was flowing between lead vocalist Irwin and drummer Alan, which had the audience laughing with them. They were also quite amusingly shocked by the good old “Here we, here we…” chant, which no concert in Scotland would be complete without!
However, there was quite a beautifully sombre moment where Irwin was talking about writing one of the album tracks. He said it was inspired by struggles with mental health before appealing to the crowd by saying, “Speak to a friend and if they don’t listen, they’re an idiot, speak to someone else!”.
Hearing the whole album live was a very nostalgic experience, as many people our age grew up listening to it. This was shown by the fact that the majority of the crowd was made up of people in their 20s.
The good thing is that there were clearly enough people in the audience that have been following The Hoosiers whole career. As a result, when they came back to the stage after finishing playing all the tracks from the album, people were still singing and dancing along to some of their newer material. Even then, for people who didn’t know some of their newer material, this later part of the set was broken up with a cover of The Weeknd’s ‘I Can’t Feel My Face’ which got the crowd rowdy.
Closing the show with their biggest single released after their debut album, ‘Choices’, it was clear that everyone was having a blast. The Hoosiers’ sheer charisma and knack for writing a catchy tune means that everyone is guaranteed to have a good time at one of their live shows.
Music editor
