The Bluetones

It’s almost thirty years since The Bluetones first hit the British music scene with their most amazing debut album (Expecting To Fly), it had an immediate impact and has since become something of a modern-day classic. Spawning several hit singles at the time it put them in the hearts and minds forever to people of a certain age in what was a golden age of music in this country, and it still stands extremely tall and proud when up against many albums from the same era. To my mind it was and still is a perfect ten.
Mark Morris and the boys (the original line up) are currently on tour around the UK and still in between albums! Morris jokes, rather sheepishly with his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek, that it will be just sixteen years since the last one was released by the time that the new record comes out in 2026!
Morris really is on his cheekiest of behaviours (he may have had a couple of sherbets enroute?), checking regularly that we are all still there and repeatedly calling us the Norwich branch of The Bluetones anorak fan club. But we need not be offended as it’s all said in the right manner, it’s said more as a term of endearment.
A punter introduces himself mid-set as an ex-work colleague from their days of stacking shelves at frozen food store, Iceland. A debate then follows between them as to what department they each worked in, was it the frozen food aisle? It kind of helps to capture the mood of the evening, after all its Friday night and the mood is light in the room tonight with this almost sell-out crowd.
He is a great communicator full of chat, charm, and whit; it’s something that a certain lead singer from a band of the same era could do with taking note of! This is how you do it Liam!
Tales of on being on the dole ensue and we learn that Cut Some Rug is about an ex-friend (Roland) that broke the mould of their friendship group as he went out and got himself a job! We are encouraged to boo him for this.
The big songs deserve a big singalong, and they get it, Bluetonic, Slight Return and Marblehead Johnson etc.
The new and not so newer songs (In The Cut, Cheap Hotel, The Aristocrats and London Weekend Television) blend in perfectly with the older tracks. It’s been a big tease at times during the show, for what we can expect from them next year and on this form, we can all look forward to the new album with a lot of confidence and of course it will be great to see them back out on the live circuit once again.
We are encouraged to once again boo loudly if we want an encore and roadie / band member Jimmy who we have not long been introduced too is even holding aloft a piece of cardboard with ‘boo,’ written on it as they exit the stage.
Thankfully, we are soon treated to three more songs including an impromptu version of My Way (yes that one) with Morris singing some made up on the spot lyrics, he’s rambling, and it’s hilarious.
On this form some more fresh and exciting adventure lay ahead for The Bluetones with that new album just around the corner.
Would it be too much to ask to also get a thirtieth-year celebration out of them for Expecting To Fly as well? Judging by the response to songs from said album that get an airing tonight, including non-single Carnt Be Trusted, here’s hoping that we may have helped to give them something to think about? We can but live in hope.
They remain a real class act and one thing is for certain, there is plenty more life in this band yet.