Therapy? - The Waterfront, Norwich, Norfolk, England - 31.03.98

Andy and the boys emerged on stage to chants of "you fat bast---" but didn't seem to mind. In fact, they seemed good-humoured throughout the whole concert, at one stage making reference to a locally-known actor/comedian, "Alan Partridge" as well as paying tribute to their own recently deceased native actor/comedian "Father Ted". They reveled in the audience participation: the crowd was heaving, not only because of the effect of the music but because the venue was so small there wasn't a lot of room to do much else.

As was to be expected, Therapy? plugged their new album, "Semi-Detached": their new material showed them in a much tamer form: "Church of Noise" was the track which had the most impact, in my view.

Therapy? belted out some of their older songs, "Screamager", "Nowhere", "Isolation" (a particular favourite of mine, but not as good as Joy Division's version) and the sinister sounding "Teethgrinder". They also quietened things down a bit with the haunting "Diane". Surprisingly enough, there was no performance of "Trigger Inside", to my disappointment.

It's nice to think that these boys are not so absorbed in their own egos that they feel that small venues would restrict their box office earnings and their pop stardom status.

Rating: ****

Date of Review: 01.04.98

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