Suited and booted lads from Manchester

The riot of colour that is Gaggle filled the stage to form the opening support act for Hurts. Once they'd all found the correct microphones, this all female choir tried valiantly to compete with the splendour of the courtyard at Somerset House – but they where fighting a loosing battle. There weren't helped by the fact that, unusually for the series, the audience was very sparse – maybe the very threatening skies had people waiting to see what developed before committing themselves to an evening in the open air.

By contrast Saint Saviour, whom I’d had the pleasure of listening to live before during the HMV Next Big Thing series and as a headliner at XOYO, with only two backing singers, filled the stage with energy and an amazingly expanding dress. With a voice approaching Kate Bush in quality, I’m sure we will be hearing more from her in the future. She is certainly on my list of artist to watch out for…

From Hurts 2011

Then, suited and booted Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson joined their band, an opera soloist, string section and two dancers on stage – almost as many people as Gaggle had brought to the stage. Rather different to the other group from Manchester that has been on the same stage a couple of nights before… With the weather having miraculously not become a night of down pours, the audience had built to capacity; they where enraptured by the opening “Silver Lining” and “Wonderful Life”. My personal highlight was a cover of "Confide In Me" from Kylie Minogue's more electronic period in the mid 90s. Theo’s destruction of a mic stand half way through the set seamed to be without artistic justification – but that was the only blot on a well crafted show – except that it might have been too crafted and styled – without a little spontaneity – maybe that is where the destruction of the mic stand came in.  Closing with vast amounts of red confetti would have left the staff of Somerset House with an enormous cleaning up task – it had got absolutely everywhere within the venue and even beyond the entrance!