Gig review: Starsailor at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

There’s something uniquely intimate about seeing a band with platinum-selling history squeeze onto the Brudenell stage, and Starsailor’s long awaited return was the epitome of nostalgia.

Walking out to a crowd made up of long-time loyalists, curious newcomers, but generally people who clearly knew every lyric of every track. The sold-out venue generating the level of anticipation a band earns from two decades of quietly consistent, emotionally honest songwriting.

They opened with Alcoholic, no messing around, straight to the anthems, a slow-burn choice that worked beautifully in the Brudenell’s warm acoustics. James Walsh’s voice – still soaring, still slightly fragile at the edges – carried the room immediately.

Starsailor sometimes get unfairly labelled as part of the early-2000s “sensitive indie” wave, but live they’re far more dynamic, heavier even; the guitars have bite, the rhythm section drives everything forward with real muscle. Keep Us Together providing the anthemic, heavy guitar sound of their repertoire.

The set balanced nostalgia with a subtle confidence that they would be able to capture the audience at every turn, the majority of the crowd appearing to be as fervent in their support now as they were 25 years ago. It’s easy to lose track of just how many songs the Cheshire quartet successfully infiltrated into the psyche until hearing 17 of them in quick succession acts as a reminder.

Walsh chatted between songs in that unassuming, self-deprecating way of his, joking about how the band are now “old enough that half the crowd discovered us through their parents,”, amongst other references to having produced music for a quarter of a century.

But the night’s highlights were the encores, Four to the Floor and Good Souls engendering the sing along crowd anthems. Songs built for communal singing and, in a small room like the Brudenell, it lands differently – warmer, more human. The last three tracks, completed by Love is Here, ensuring the set became indelibly inked into the night.

The set included a cover of Jealous Guy, thrown in there as an example of the band’s musicianship. The band may never have hit the dizzy heights of some of their contemporaries, but they’re still playing, still working through the hits.

In the end, it felt less like a nostalgia trip and more like a reminder of how good Starsailor always were. In a venue built on authenticity, they delivered exactly that: heartfelt songs and strong musicianship.

Earlier, Ed Harcourt had set the scene, providing the sort of support act that, despite his obvious talent, has never seemed to want to hog the limelight. Harcourt has written and been involved in some modern-day classic albums, here his set delivered the perfect precursor to his new album Orphic, released the very next day. A guitar-focused album inspired by French film, Orphée, Harcourt managing to cover the entire stage as an energetic one-man whirlwind.