Jabez Clegg, Manchester, Tuesday 4th October 2005

Starsailor's long awaited third album On the Outside has been announced, their first single from it; In the Crossfire is piled up on record shop shelves and the band are limbering up for a full length tour as soon as the new material is in the CD players of eager fans. The band decide to do a few small shows to stretch their muscles and get to match fitness, from Edinburgh to Bristol in the UK and from Cologne to Brussels on mainland Europe.

The second UK date took them to a new venue for them, the Jabez Clegg club in the heart of university country in Manchester. Tickets were in short supply and sold out within hours and the anticipation of new material at fever pitch.

The gig followed a Manchester in-store session earlier that day, with a 3 song acoustic set and signing session at the Fopp record store and was a high energy, good humoured tour de force through material from all three albums, old favourites rubbing shoulders with first time airings of tracks from On the Outside, all of which were equally enthusiastically greeted, the new material being listened to intently with bobbing heads and wide eyes.

As with many previous live dates when they have been accompanied by Charlatans guitarist Mark Collins, their sound was augmented on the warm up tour with the addition of a new guitarist, Richard Warren (aka Echoboy), who also added to the sound with vocal contributions, which supplemented and complimented James's voice nicely.

The gig had an intimate and close feel, opened gently with an acoustic set from Jeepster and the band clearly enjoyed it immensely, James and Stel parrying comments back and forth with an audience that contained many of their family and friends.

It really is a treat to see the band in such an up close and personal environment and the new material sounded awesome at close proximity and sat perfectly comfortably alongside live stalwarts like Tie Up My Hands and Good Souls. The current single, In the Crossfire worked perfectly, nestled with Silence is Easy as the show finale.

On the Outside . . . bring it on!

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Starsailor were supported by Jeepster who did an acoustic set to open for them.