Thousand Yard Stare rolled back the years with an energetic show at Gullivers in Manchester on Saturday night. Taking songs from their 90s heyday and mixing them with more recent material from their post-reformation records, they delighted a nostalgic crowd that threw themselves around to songs that defined their youth. Support came from John Mouse, the Welsh one.
It's an inauspicious start for John Mouse as he turns on a backing track and throws shapes on the stage. No one's quite sure what to make of him, particularly as he launches into an explanation of who is he, not the American songwriter, not the rapper nor the Roger Hargreaves (he of Mister Men fame) character, but the Welsh one. Over forty minutes though he wins the audience over with songs about bricking a paedophile's window, stolen cars and neighbours he hates, whilst sticking to the formula of vocals over a backing track accompanied by more dancing. There's a huge roar of appreciation when he finishes his set - it could have been really embarrassing given the raw ingredients, but in fact was rather brilliant.
The plethora of Manchester classics played between the two acts stops abruptly and there's an awkward silence before the shipping forecast, a typically TYS move, kicks in as four of the band make their way to the stage for the instrumental Junketing before front man Stephen joins them and they kick into Version Of Me, the lead single from their underappreciated and oft-forgotten second album Mappamundi. In fact, later Stephen tells us he only listened to it in 2015, and then under a duvet, but it wasn't as bad as he feared it would sound.
The challenge for a band of Thousand Yard Stare's vintage is that whilst they moved on musically, their audience might not have done. Two of the next three tracks are from their more recent work - the sublime Heimlich Maneuver from their Live At Electric Studios release and It Sparks! from their "comeback" album The Panglossian Momentum - although disappointingly 2022's Earthanasia isn't represented at all. Sandwiched in between it is Buttermouth, one of the singles that catapulted them briefly front and centre on the NME and Radio 1. The audience, mostly, like us, gentlemen of a certain age, throw themselves around to the latter, whilst using the newer songs to catch their breath and appreciate that Thousand Yard Stare were, and are, far more than a few singles from the dim and increasingly distant past.
The band then alternate those debut Hands On era tracks - Comeuppance, Seasonstream and the magnificent 0-0 aet - with Tragedy No 6 and What's Your Level from Mappamundi, demonstrating further that the impact of music can often be linked directly to the exposure it gets rather than its quality. This is evidenced even further by the penultimate track A Thousand Yards (A Panglossian Momentum), a huge epic track where they ditch any attempt at commerical sensibilities and create a glorious sprawling epic. Either side of it there's Wideshire, the 1990s attempt at such a track, and the finale of their debut single Wonderment where the crowd let loose for one last time.
This might be the last time we see Thousand Yard Stare on stage. They have a few more shows to come this month, but they've alluded to the fact this might be their farewell, although have teased leaving that question open. There's a touching moment where Stephen apologises for the delay in the show (which was scheduled for May last year) and Sean thanks the audience for bearing with them whilst he underwent cancer treatment. If it is the last time we see them, they'll leave behind fond memories. A band that could have been, should have been, but which ultimately fell, like so many great lost bands, at the fickle hand of the music business.
Thousand Yard Stare's official website can be found here and they are on Facebook and Twitter.
They play Brighton Prince Albert (February 13), London 100 Club (14) and Bristol Louisiana (28).
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