Mostly Autumn, Crewe Limelight, August 4th

This is the second time I've seen MA play at this small club in Crewe. Last time was the Christmas special before a packed crowd. This time it wasn't completely sold out, but there was still a good attendance for a Thursday night. With the retail release of the new album "Storms Over Still Water" just four days away, there was an atmosphere of anticipation. I was unable to make the launch gig in London in June, so this would be the first time I'd heard most of "Storms" performed live.

Just after half past nine the six of the seven band members trooped on stage and Bryan Josh struck up the opening chords of "Out of the Green Sky", the hard-rocking first number from "Storms". It's difficult to fit the whole band on the Limelight's small stage; this meant bassist Andy Smith and second guitarist Liam Davidson were half hidden away at the back on the edge of the drum riser, and anyone on the right hand side of the hall would have had trouble seeing flautist Angela Gordon behind Iain Jennings Wakemanesque mountain of keyboards.

Heather Findlay made a dramatic entrance just in time to sing the soaring chorus, looking as stunning as ever, even though we didn't get to see the spray-on red catsuit she wore in London.

The band were both tight and enthusiastic, and gave the crowd two and a half hours of stunning music ranging mixing rousing hard rock with floydian soundscapes and celtic atmospherics. They've very much got their own sound, and longer sound like a jumble of diverse influences. Heather's singing has a lot more power now, and she can belt out hard rockers as well as the softer ballads. Bryan's gravelly lead vocals make a good counterpoint, and he too is much improved. His guitar playing is great two, with a nod to Dave Gilmour and Richie Blackmore, but his solos are never quite long enough to outstay their welcome. I'd like to have heard a bit more of Angela's flute playing; she's now playing keyboards a lot of the time.

The setlist mixed a lot of new songs with plenty of older classics, although they've now reached the stage where they've got so much good material that there's not room for everyone's favourites even in a set of this length. I believe they're rotating a lot of songs, both new and old, in and out of the set rather than playing the same show each night, which probably explains the mix up mid-set, when Bryan and Heather had different ideas over what the next song was supposed to be! They played the obvious standards such as "Heroes Never Die", "The Spirit of Autumn Past", "Evergreen", "Caught in a Fold" and "Passengers". The celtic/folky/Tolkien era wasn't completely ignored with a rousing version of the instrumental "Out of the Inn". There were even a few surprises, such as "Winter Mountain", from 1999's "Sprit of Autumn Past", which I'd not heard them play live before.

The "Storms" material focussed on the shorter songs, "Heart Life", which they've been playing live for a while, the Uriah Heep-meets-Oasis rockout of "Black Rain", and the lighter "Broken Glass", which I found much more impressive live than on record. The only longer song featured was "Candle in the Sky". I would have liked to have heard "Carpe Diem" or the title track, but we can't have everything unless they play for four hours.

They finished, as they always do, with the epic "Mother Nature", stretched out to 15 minutes, building up from a gentle beginning to that magnificent sweeping chorus, followed by the atmospheric instrumental section before the rousing finale, which ended with Bryan teasing us with a few bars of Pink Floyd's "Echoes".

Mostly Autumn really deserve to be playing bigger venues than this. Put them on tour with someone like The Darkness or Coldplay and they'd blow them off stage. Their commercial success has been limited by the fashion-driven nature of the British music scene, where you don't get a look in unless you're the right kind of three chord poseurs to impress the clique of London-based psuedo-intellectual music press scribblers. Hopefully things are beginning to change; there are signs that real music played by real musicians is making a comeback.