Lostprophets
Guildhall, Southampton
26 February 2010

There is already a fairly lengthy queue forming outside the Guildhall as we arrive in Southampton on this fairly cold Friday night. It’s a scene that has been replicated all across the UK over the course of this 19-date UK tour and one that shows that the UK’s love affair with the Lostprophets shows no signs of slowing down.

Tonight is the second to last date of the tour and, although illness is rife in the Lostprophets camp, the band still pour every ounce of energy into their performance ensuring that every paying punter in this venue leaves having had value for their hard-earned money. As the crowds screams are drowned out by the pulsing intro tape, the band stride out one by one before launching into opener If It Wasn’t For Hate and it quickly becomes crystal clear that this is a band with the fire back in the collective bellies. Hurtling headlong into a set crammed full of rock anthems the band play a faultless set with the likes of It’s Not The End Of The World, Last Summer and Last Train Home sounding absolutely gargantuan no matter where you stand in the Guildhall. The seemingly endless stream of hits continues as Burn!Burn and Rooftops are all greeted like long lost friends while, later in the set, the band are in danger of being drowned out during a run through of recent single Where We Belong. Between song banter is kept to a minimum during the course of the night while their cover of Prodigy hit Omen provides an interesting aside. A blistering Start Something threatens to blow the roof off this venue while the band end the main set with a foundation-shaking rendition of Shinobi Vs Dragonninja. Despite never doing encores, the Prophets return to end the night with The Light That Shines Twice As Bright a song that brings the night to a spine-tingling finale.

Whether you’re a fan of the band or not, you can’t fault their performance tonight – it had hit singles, anthemic rockers and sing-a-long pop rock gems. As has been noted in many articles since the release of The Betrayed, the Welsh band really do look like a band that have rediscovered why they’re doing this which, for Watkins and Co, means playing the best shows of their lives and, for their loyal fanbase, it means a magical night in the company of their favourite band.

Review by Graham Finney