Gig review: The Lilacs at Network, Sheffield

On Friday evening, a vocal crowd packed into the intimate Network to watch one of the UK’s best upcoming, unsigned indie bands.

The four-piece, who hail from the North West, have garnered some rave reviews after some big support slots including supporting South Yorkshire’s own The Sherlocks at the Albert Hall in Manchester.

They will also be playing on the main stage at the Askern Music Festival in Doncaster on July 8 this year.

Supporting the lads were Sheffield rockers Juno and Hartlepool based singer-songwriter Micky Gallagher. Both set the tone of the evening perfectly. Micky Gallagher particularly courted the crowds attention with new song Teach Me How To Swim with its catchy, upbeat lyrics.

Led by frontman Ollie Anglesea, the band weaved their way through the appreciative crowd to the small, intimate stage and kicked things off with Sally – an upbeat drum-heavy song, with epic guitar riffs.

This led the band nicely into latest single, Sticky Dancefloors. A catchy, melodic number which had me humming along and nodding my head along with the packed crowd in unison as did 2022 hit By All Means.

All throughout the gig, the frontman from Wigan, kept wholeheartedly thanking the fans for coming and supporting them.

The gig took a somewhat mellower turn with That’s Not Me and Something or Nothing – a great chance for frontman Anglesea to demonstrate the range and power of his voice along with his superb song writing ability.

Anglesea then traded his red Fender for an acoustic guitar for the almost sea-shanty like When Happy Hour Ends. A real catchy number which captivated the crowd and had them swaying and singing along.

Anglesea then asked the crowd “Anyone in here called Grace?” Bizzarely, no-one in the sell-out crowd was. Even more bizarrely when he asked the same question on the previous three tour dates in Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle, no-one was called Grace either.

Undeterred, Anglesea decided to re-name a random reveller Grace and dedicate the song, called Grace, to her which had the bumper crowd in hysterics.

The tempo was amped up a couple of notches with the riff-heavy Red Flags & Warning Signs before finishing with, in my opinion, two of their best hits in Seen it All and the anthemic Vicarage Road.

It was a great evening in an intimate venue with a band who I can see destined for much bigger things in the future.