The first time was a very stripped back affair, with just Glenn and Sonya and a tape machine (at one of the first gigs I think they did after starting to reuse the Echobelly, rather than Calm of Zero, name).
This time they were back, but with a drummer, bass guitarist and (tucked away at the back) another guitarist.
The West End Centre in Aldershot is a tiny venue, so I was expecting it to be packed as it was shown as 'sold out' on the email I received the day before.
Aldershot is about a 10 minute drive from my home and I arrived about 15 minutes before the support act, Annabel Allum, was due to go on.
I'd looked her up on YouTube and saw a melancholy, quirky young woman singer, but she sounded interesting enough and a fair number of others joined me in having a listen.
I would say 'interesting' is a good description for Annabel. Although she dresses like a '50s dock worker in her pyjamas and her songs are, indeed, quite melancholy, she seemed quite a friendly, cheerful person between songs.
The sound (as opposed to the sound balance) was different too, just her vocal and her electric guitar, which leant the songs I'd heard on YT a very different sound. Very stripped back and edgy.
She got a good reception and I'd say she'll either be a huge success or disappear without trace, it could go either way!
There was a 15 minute or so interval before everyone returned to the hall for Echobelly.
The background music changed and the (already dark) lights dimmed a little more, while the stage lighting changed and then 3 musicians I didn't recognise appeared, followed by the two I did.
I'm not an old-school Echobelly fan (unlike most there, I'd never knowingly heard a song before looking them up before the previous gig), so I didn't recognise the first couple of songs and I received later songs, like Faces in the Mirror, with more enthusiasm than most.
What had struck me at the previous gig was that Sonya Madan has (still) a lovely voice. Sadly, while the band exuded energy, her vocals were rather lost in the mix.
Someone behind me was grumbling about this as well, but no-one said anything, so I called out that the vocals needed raising.
She replied that she wasn't feeling too well, but would try singing louder - Whether it was that or the engineer changed the mix, but the vocal was clearer on later songs.
Once that improved, it was possible to really enjoy the gig.
It was totally different to the previous one, as I'd hoped and expected, with the 5 piece lineup given the songs more punch than the mainly acoustic set of the duo had.
The crowd responded most enthusiastically to the hits, like 'King Of The Kerb', 'Father, Ruler, King, Computer','Great Things' and the encore finale, 'Dark Therapy', but all the songs got a good reaction, a few of us obviously enjoying some of their later material more than the majority ('Faces in the Mirror' was the first song of theirs I was aware of and stil a big favourite of mine).
The set wasn't very long; even with an encore I was back outside in an hour and a quarter of them coming on stage, but it was highly enjoyable.
I'd be hard pressed to say which gig by Echobelly I'd enjoyed the most - The first was more intimate and allowed us to enjoy Sonya's voice and lyrics more, but this was more energetic.
Either way, I'd say they're a band well worth seeing and judging from the reaction of the packed venue, I was far from alone in that view on that Friday evening.
Apologies for the terrible photos, I had to use my phone this time and it's useless in low light
Setlist:
Bulldog Baby
We Know Better
Car Fiction
Anarchy and Alchemy
Iris Art
King of the Kerb
Hey Hey Hey
If the Dogs Don't Get You, My Sisters Will
Down to Earth
Faces in the Mirror
Father, Ruler, King, Computer
Great Things
Scream
Encore:
Giving It All (Calm of Zero cover)
Dark Therapy
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