Before their big headline show at Rock City, Tim and Mark from The Charlatans played an acoustic set at Rough Trade.
The Charlatans are often considered to be an unlucky band, with members having spent time at Her Majesty's Pleasure and others sadly passing away. However, with three UK number 1 albums and 22 top 40 singles, the band consider themselves anything but fortunate. They're also one of those bands that no-one dislikes, helped by a lack of attitude and some great songs - everyone still rushes to the dance floor at the indie disco when The Only One I Know comes on. Their popularity is underlined by the fact that the Rough Trade shop is full of fans despite the afternoon kicking off 45 minutes late - I think a few of these folks may have been skiving off work for this.
2015 album Modern Nature was well received by both critics and fans as was this year's Different Days and it's the tour for the latter which brings the band to town. For their special acoustic in-store appearance, they open with the title track off the new album. They follow this up with North Country Boy from 1997's Tellin' Stories, which sounds completely different in this setting but still great - the mark of a good song that it can be re-interpreted in different ways.
Looking out from his dyed blond fringe, you'd never guess that Tim Burgess turned 50 earlier this year. While his face hasn't aged, his voice has improved over the years, as demonstrated with the falsetto on the closing track from the Different Days album, Spinning Out. They close their short set with Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over, the acoustic performance really highlighting the song's debt to Exile On Main Street era Rolling Stones.
And so, after just 20 minutes, they're done and the signing session starts. But it's been a beautiful 20 minutes and as Shakespeare himself noted, "brevity is the soul of wit." The fans leave happy, clutching their signed records and books, having witnessed a perfect aperitif for the evening's main course.
Tim and Mark played Rough Trade on the 29th of November
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