Fresh from a stadium tour supporting Robbie Williams, The Lottery Winners are mid-way through part two of a run of dates supporting their new album KOKO (keep on keeping on). We caught the show at The 1865 in Southampton, UK.
Their new album champions acceptance, self-discovery, and resilience, and this message of support was clear in the live show too, opening with “Superpower”, referencing lead singer Thom Rylance’s positive attitude to neurodivergence, and specifically his ADHD (his superpower). It’s a superb song and set the tone for the night, the entire crowd singing and waving along from the outset. But this was all after their choice of walk-on music, no less than The Vengaboys “We Like To Party”, and almost 5 minutes of spontaneous comedy from Thom before the music started, delivering exactly what their fans have come to expect and love. It was a freezing cold Wednesday in Southampton, but this show was all about people coming together for a good time, in Thom’s words, “the most human thing ever”.
The fourteen song set included plenty from the new album, with some old favourites including “Worry” and “The Meaning of Life”, and also a surprise song. The latter chosen at random from a wheeled-on tomobola (“Thom’s bola”) containing a different ball for each song from their back catalogue that wasn’t in the set. With an appropriate gameshow-style musical interlude, the first ball “85 Trips” was 50/50 from the crowd and rejected, the next “21” wholeheartedly supported, and played. Music meets comedy meets gameshow.
There were emotional moments too, as Thom played his acoustic guitar solo for the opening bars of “Struggling”, then joined later in the song by his band. And for “UFO” with the room lit by phone lights (and one actual lighter).
The encore included “Turn Around” with a line-dancing style sing-dance along with the crowd, before closing with the bands anthemic “Start Again”. Superb live music with a large measure of fun and relatability.
Main support was from Tom A Smith who continues to develop each time we see him perform, the show with full band was superb. Tom’s stage presence is youthful but laden with swagger, highly engaging, and surely destined for big things. Future legendary rock frontman perhaps?
Alongside a preview of unreleased new song “SFX” (special effects), favourites included “I Don’t Blame You” (start with this if you’ve not listened to Tom before) and with bass guitarist Katie Anderson driving forward their banger “Fashion”.
First up was CUSP a guitar-driven indie-rock band, who nicely warmed up the crowd with their confident stage presence.
Photos and words by Tony Palmer (Website, Instagram, TikTok).
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