My last popscene. How completely sad. Although I never would have conceptualized the weekly indie nightclub lasting as long as it has when we started it on August 31, 1995, leaving my baby is still sad, nonetheless. Luckily, I had a packed house and a live set from UK up and comers The Zutons to help soften the blow, so all was not lost.
While the four boys and one girl from Liverpool sound somewhat like The Coral on record, live they had much more of a groovy undertone to them. Kicking off the show (as on their debut, Who Killed The Zutons?) with the back-to-back hook attack of “Zuton Power” and “Pressure Point,” the quintet immediately proved to new fans and old fans alike that they meant business and they meant it NOW. Rocking through a rapid-fire 40-minute set, approximately 10 songs were unleashed on the receptive crowd, with the front five rows of popscene faithful especially in tune with the message The Zutons brought. By the time the band’s finale, the instrumental jam that is “Zutonkahmuhn”, with its added percussion and melodica from frontman Dave McCabe, the act from the hometown of The Beatles, The La’s, The Boo Radleys, and Echo & The Bunnymen had more than done their compatriots proud: they’d won over a new legion of fans on their first opportunity. And that’s saying something.
