Embrace

Firstly, I have to get a confession out of the way; I am a 'Johnny-come-lately' when it involves Embrace. I had previously always thought of them as a poor man's Coldplay, Keane with guitars, Snow Patrol-lite if you will. But then I heard the Chris Martin-penned 'Gravity' and I invested some time in the excellent album 'Out of Nothing.' I saw them perform at the Cardiff Tsunami Relief concert and I realised I was slowly becoming converted.

I'm happy to report that the conversion was officially completed tonight. From the moment Danny McNamara, his brother, Richard and their mates arrived on stage I was captivated. McNamara senior is a talismanic front man; he doesn't have the strongest voice but then the passion with which he approaches the performance makes up for this. This passion is not misplaced, for a band that have been around since the early 90's they have certainly served their apprenticeship and now, with the resurgence of melodic guitar music, Embrace's time has come but McNamara is quite obviously non-plussed by this turn of events. He seems genuinely surprised that the band has sold out consecutive nights, even if this is the closest they will come to a 'home-coming' gig on this current tour, he is authentically humble when addressing the adoring crowd and he is endearing when he beseeches us to 'get up and dance to this one, cos me mum and dad are going to!'

All the standards were here, the excellent 'Ashes' from 'Out of Nothing' launches the show, this is followed by the 1996 debut single, 'All You Good Good People' these tracks have release dates some eight years apart, but both sound fresh and exciting, Embrace are in a groove now and it's Danny McNamara who keeps them there. Half-way through the show, 'Gravity' is performed and the crowd lap it up, it's a karaoke moment and mobile phones are held aloft, teasing mates who couldn't be there.

There are even a couple of new songs penned for the new album. McNamara tells us that they penned 23 songs for this fifth album and 9 of them are 'f**king good' and if these two songs are indicative, who am I to disagree?

The finish is the new album's title track 'Out of Nothing' and the band retire, they're fooling nobody though, they can't depart without performing what is fast becoming their anthemic track, 'Glorious Day' and they don't disappoint, four more tracks are played before they finally do retire with McNamara's words about the V Festival ringing in our ears "We're not on the crappy small stage, we're on the f**king main stage this year!" The Embrace logo, picked out in lights slowly fades and I'm left thinking that, after tonight, they deserve their time in the spotlight.

FUTURE GIGS