My history with......Stereophonics

This is a new series of blogs going over how I got into bands and my thoughts of them over the years.

First up - Stereophonics

I was into Sterophonics pretty early on in the career.  I think my Dad bought the "Local boy in the photograph" single.  Which really brought them to my attention.  This single was off their debut album "Word gets around". That album came out in 1997 so I would have been 13.  At that point I was too young really to go to gigs.  I do remember quite a few folk in school were into them. One of my best friends at the time - Chris L - use to sing the lyrics to "Same size feet" which was off that album. An absolute class song. But the whole album was amazing.  I did have a conversation with another guy about the album called James M.  He used to go on about how great "Traffic" was.  I was taken a back with his choice as I never really could comprehend that a slow acoustic song could be your favourite track off an album as I always tended to like the more rockier stuff.  That did open my mind a bit though talking to him about it.

The next album "Performance and cocktails" I thought was a really solid album.  In fact I didn't think there was a bad song off either of the first 2 albums.  "Just looking" and "Stop to fill my car up" were particular favourites.  As previously mentioned Chris was really into them too and so was my other friend Graeme . We were about 15 then when this album came out and decided to go and see them at the SECC in 1999.   This would be my first standing gig.  It wasn't my first gig overall, I think it would be one of the gigs we went to as a family would have been my first.  This gig though was amazing.  Our Lady peace were the support.  I wasn't completely blown away with them to be honest but liked them enough to investigate them further when I got home.  I bought many albums by them following that and really got into them. To me they are the Canadian version of the Stereophonics.

The Stereophonics themselves that night were absolutely brilliant. We had positioned ourselves right in the middle of standing.  It was literally jumping.  And I had to jump in order to see anything so it was like being on a Pogo stick.  About half way through though I was starting to feel dizzy so we went to the refreshment stand to get some water.  After that we just stood up the back so we didn't have to jump up and down to see.  I loved that gig - they must have played every track from the 2 albums they had at the time.

Their third album "Just enough education to perform" or JEEP is where I started to drift away from them. Their were some good songs like "Mr Writer" and "Have a nice day" but it was an album I never really got into and from that point I was never really that bothered about seeing them live again.  I just felt the gig I went to see them at was them at their peak.

Next album "You gotta go their to come back" I didn't even buy at the time. It would be many years later I would buy it and even then its hardly been listened to. There 5th album "Language.Sex.Violence.Other?" was a marked improvement on the previous two albums. Songs like "Dakota" and "Rewind" in particular were some of the best they have done.

From there though I have dipped in and out. From going from being a massive fan. I wouldn't say I'm really a fan anymore. But I would like to rediscover their early work at some point.