Live Review
Reef – Shepherds Bush Empire, London
With a 7 year hiatus from live performances, starting your first set with a song titled Come Back Brighter could have backfired rather badly. It didn’t. With their 5th gig of the year, Reef confirmed their reputation for being one of the UK’s tightest and most energising live performers of the 90’s, producing a blistering set that if not brighter was certainly as blinding as the band in their heyday.
Visibly not a lot has changed. Bassist Jack Bessant has been replaced by Jeff Lebowski, but Kenwyn House and Dominic Greensmith looked like they’d spent 6 years in stasis. Gary Stringer was back with his trademark shoulder-length hair, having grown out of his grown up look, and swaggered around stage, owning every inch of it.
Sensibly, the set kept clear of tracks from their later years, where themes of growing up and settling down didn’t really work with their sound or style. Stand out tracks of the night included tub-thumping renditions of Good Feeling, Choose to Live and Yer Old. Outstanding acoustic-led renditions of Mellow, I’ve Got Something to Say and Consideration were note perfect.
The audience lapped up every minute of Reef’s performance, concluded as always with an explosive and raw rendition of The End. It was gratifying to see so much youth in the mosh pit and singing along with the rest of us late twenties oldies. Reef had such an uncomplicated and fun agenda when it came to their music and it’s something that has been missing from the UK scene for some time. Seeing their sounds reach a new audience was just fantastic. Look for them putting contemporary bands’ posturing to shame at the Isle of Wight.