Catfish and the Bottlemen, James and DMAs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

This was an odd gig for me to go to. First of all, because for me the gig ran in reverse. The openers were an act I know very well and have seen pretty much every time they tour in England. The middle act, James, I have seen a few times over the years. (Most people who know of them are probably surprised they are still going.) And the main act I had never seen and only have one album of theirs (although they only have three). 

Catfish have a large but pretty young following - I doubt there was anyone there (at least standing) who was withing twenty years of me. They are far from household names, but they play arenas.

And while I have been to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to watch football, I haven't been to a gig there.

Anyway, we got to the venue early and found a spot dead centre about five people from the front barrier. (The barrier itself was was duly lined with earlier entrants who had paid an extra premium for doing so. We had tickets in the gold circle which basically meant you be as far forward as you were able to reach. The next (cheaper) circle was right towards the back of the pitch. 

On to the openers the DMAs from Sydney Australia. I love the DMAs, have all their albums, so found myself evangelising to my two young friends. And I think they were converted. But they did look a little swamped here, on a huge stage with most of the equipment (for the following act) covered over as if waiting for a removal van.

But they played a short but perfect set for what was not, after all, their own fanbase. They played their strongest songs and included one cover that all the crowd would know and sing along to, Cher's I Believe

My friends Eoin and Niamh, evidently loving every minute of it

The middle act was the prolific James. While they did play a couple of their best known hits, including Sit Down which everyone knows, typically they also played a couple of tracks off their newest album which nobody knew. And while lead singer Tim Booth espoused the new songs for their superior musicality, they just were not the right choice for a stadium full of fans of another band altogether.

Tim Booth also decided to go walkabout into the crowd, which was shown on the big screen

And this shot, which my six foot four companion Eoin got for me with my zoom lens over the heads of the crowd behind us, is Tim not at the front of the crowd, but at the back barrier performing to the cheap seats as it were.

Tim Booth also engaged from time to time in his "most embarrassing dad ever dancing at wedding" routines. He did one that look liked a French mime artist acting out a man fending off a swarm of bees. Its fun.

Finally, the moment all the crowd apart from me had been waiting for, the appearance through a positive fog of dry ice, of Catfish and the Bottlemen, AKA (essentially) Van McCann, a Welsh rocker. This is very much a stadium rock band, in the image of, say, the Foo Fighters.

Early in the show, out came the inflatable alligators, the image from the front of the second Catfish album, Ride

And with the band departing at about 10pm, so did we. The crowd departed very happy. I think they got everything they came for. For me, I am not sure I totally see the appeal, although as I say I only know one of their three albums and it helps to be familiar with the songs. But basically they are too rock for my indie tastes.