Harrogate Conference Centre
A concert of two halves. Firstly the warm up act, also called Texas, takes to the stage to deliver Southside in it's running order. Between each song Sharleen delivers her sweary charm, as she engages and has fun with the audience. Gigs like this are always great fun, you don't have to have seen Texas before, in fact you don't have to have even heard them to enjoy it. Between each song their loyal fan base just shout out questions, ranging from asking for Sharleen for her hat (which they're told "no fucking way"), or shouting out it's their birthday, which ends up with a few minutes of Sharleen having a chat and a laugh with the person. There's great banter throughout the set. You're not just here to listen to the music and go, you're here for an experience, bonding with the band.
The stage is beautifully set, the band all sat, dim yellow lights overhead giving the feeling like you've arrived at some smokey cool bar. Between the chat Sharleen delivers each song as fresh as they were in 89, delicious unfalterering vocals. Before finishing on Future is Promises, Sharleen banters with the audience thanking them for having them, they've enjoyed supporting Texas, and they hope they enjoy the other band named Texas. This set alone is what everyone has come for, if that was all they had come to deliver, it would've been enough.
The staging returns to what you expect from gigs, multiple coloured lights beaming down, a dash of smoke, it's now time for Texas to take to stage to deliver their hits, get the fans to get to their feet and rock out with them. Not so much chat this time round, they've a heavy set of hits to cram into the time left before curfew. Kicking off with Halo, they deliver a burst of 11 songs, from hits, to new music such as Hi, before exiting Say What You Want, returning to an encore of I Don't Want a Lover, Black Eyed Boy. They leave a fully satisfied sold out audience with Suspicious Minds, and that's the show over.
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