On Saturday night The Northern Line headed out to Sunderland, to see Scotland’s finest The View headline The Independent.

The tour is a massive one, around 30 dates over the months of November and December, climaxing with a home town show in Dunfermline (well… nearly hometown!!) The View have a new album out in March 2011, titled Tragic Magic and the tour has been organised to showcase tracks from what will be their 3rd studio album.

We arrive at the venue after a few pre gig drinks to get us in the spirit and make our way up the stairs into the small club. (600 capacity and the show has sold out.) Most of the tour the venues are tiny clubs, which for me is a far better night out than going to see Kings of Leon playing in a faceless stadium and charging £60 for the pleasure. As the crowd start the obligatory chant of “the view, the view, the view are on fire” the band take to the stage, smiles and nods to the crowd in abundance. They launch straight into Wasteland from Hats Off to the Buskers and the crowd go wild, what follows then, is another 10 songs from their first two LPs and 6 songs from their new lp (set list below)

Last year when The View released their 2nd album Which Bitch? they seemed to loose a massive part of their audience generated by the huge success of their only real hit single, Same Jeans. This to me was a huge shame, whilst Hats off to the Buskers was a greatish debut album Which Bitch? was by far the more superior. Yes it was a slight change in both direction and song writing style but it showed how the band weren’t just daft kids and that they had developed musically and lyrically from their first album. In our household it was the most played album of last year and possibly even this year. The View are a great young band and really deserve to be playing bigger and better venues this time next year.

If I were you I would sell your stadium show tickets for whoever you have bought tickets for and go and see this band when you can, there are still dates left on this tour and it really is a great night out (www.seetickets.com)

Set list as promised

1. Wasteland
2. New Track?
3. 5rebecca’s
4. Wasted Little DJs
5. Tragic Magic (new song)
6. Realisation
7. Skag Trendy
8. Don’t tell me
9. Don’t let the girl come out (new track I think that was the title!)
10. Happy (new song)
11. Yellow Lines
12. Superstar Tradesman
13. Now we’ve kissed (new song)
14. Sunday (new song)
15. Gem of a Bird
16. Up the Junction (cover by Squeeze)
17. Shock Horror

By Andy on November 25, 2010