As part of the campaign for the release this week of their seventh album Out Of A Dream, The Slow Readers Club headed to Headrow House in Leeds for two shows in conjunction with Crash Records playing the album in full plus four tracks from their substantial back catalogue repertoire.
Releasing an album is a relentless business for artists these days. The all-important week one chart position has driven them to a series of in- and out-store performances where good value gig tickets are accompanied by the purchase of a CD or vinyl to help the push to get as high as possible. It's necessary because streaming has distorted the charts to an extent that punishes artists that rely on people being willing to part with their hard-earned cash to support artists rather than those with a one-off monthly payment to a corporate monolith that pays artists peanuts while making billions themselves.
For the fan it's an opportunity to see a band in smaller spaces than they'd ordinarily play - just six months ago The Slow Readers Club filled the 1,000 plus capacity Project House across town, now we're in a 150 capacity room where you can see the whites of their eyes (assuming you're close enough to the stage not to be impaired by bobbing heads). The stage allows Aaron leverage to stand at the very edge and lean over the front rows too, creating a real sense of intimacy that the bigger rooms can't hope to match.
The set they play is the whole of Out Of A Dream, an album that with time and repeated listens, could usurp 2015's Cavalcade as the most-loved in their canon. Without a weak track it's a collection that stands up well to being played live in order, perfectly ordered like career-defining albums are - front-loaded with lead singles Technofear and Animals through more tender moments like Little White Lies, the euphoric danceable Boy So Blue, the immediate earworms of Dear Silence, Pirouette and Puppets, the dramatic Know This I Am and Loved You Then and the album's high point Our Song Is Sung that brings it, and the first part of the set, to an end.
With a series of these shows behind them, the band are tight and together, save for Aaron's faux-pas during Animals in the first set that causes a restart and much mirth on and off stage. James Ryan (bass) and David Whitworth (drums) lock in as a rhythm section that's the backbone of the band whilst Kurtis Starkie's guitar sounds darker and richer live. At the centre is Aaron Starkie's vocals which have aged like a fine wine, the emotional content of the lyrics being amplified by them being sung live in the room in front of you with a voice that captures just the right tone for whatever he's singing about at the time. The awe in which the Readers fanbase hold them is very evident to witness at close quarters.
The second show isn't at capacity, but it's one of the best sets we've ever seen them play, there feels like a really special energy in the room compared to the more restrained listening crowd of the earlier sold-out gig. The band fed off the audience and vice versa and it reminded us just how strong the power of connection through music is.
It even sees Aaron end up in the crowd leading the bouncing to a glorious Forever In Your Debt, the third of four extra songs (alongside Feet On Fire, the magnificent Afterlife that somehow wasn't chosen as a single from previous album Knowledge, Freedom, Power and the predictable but never tired finale of their real breakthrough single Lunatic that saw Build A Tower bulldoze its way into the top 20 and announce The Slow Readers Club as contenders at the business end of the charts. Out Of A Dream sits at number five in the midweeks as we write this - their best midweek position to date.
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