Live! Ocean Colour Scene in Sheffield

by Levina Duivesteijn

Ocean Colour Scene, the English band from Birmingham, are still around after just over two decades and busy touring all over the UK! Although having formed in 1989, it wasn’t until Britpop became the dominant musical genre during the mid-1990s that they became nationally and internationally well-known. They, however, never really thought of themselves as Britpop. As Simon Weller says in an interview with The Daily Record: “We always thought that was Blur, while we were more in the Paul Weller and Oasis gang. We sort of became popstars by default through Britpop for about two or three years.”

Popstars, rockstars, we don’t really mind which label is used - as long as they continue making the awesome music we know them for. And so they do, they have just released their album Saturday, recorded in the Rockfield studios which was also the home for Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody in the summer of 1975, to mark their 21st anniversary and are touring around the country to celebrate – and who would we be to not celebrate with them? So I left London for the night and went up to Sheffield to see how they are doing live after all those years!

After a sweet opening by Steve Pilgrim and The Moons, it took some time before everything was set on stage but then we got what we came for. As soon as their energetic sound fills the O2 Academy, they prove to not only be on fine form but also still going strong. Everyone gets into it and the atmosphere couldn’t be better: we cheer, dance, and sing along. They play tracks of the new album such as Magic Carpet Days and Saturday, but also their well-known songs like The Circle and Profit In Peace in which Simon Weller turns the microphone to the audience to sing along and starts dancing with himself on stage for a moment.

But it was the encore which eventually made the evening - more classics which got the audience wild. They let us work for it though, for about ten minutes we have been cheering, clapping and calling ‘OCS’ non-stop, but the reward was worth it: Robin Hood on just acoustic followed by their number one greatest hit: The Riverboat Song. We couldn’t ask for more!

Follow them on Bandsintown to see where they are playing next and visit their site to enjoy some songs of their new album!

Tagged: concerts, london, .

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