October 3rd 1991 – Leicester Poly
My second time seeing the Furs, although the first time back in 1989 was in their secret guise of “Book of Days”.
The Furs were now well established as a pop rock band and lead singer, Tim Butler, has a very distinctive gravelly voice, which had generally made them struggle to hit the mainstream. Their style was quite rocky pop with a bit of an outside edge to most styles. They had a very loyal following, but apart from a few well known hits, struggled to make it big.
I would say the Leicester Poly Arena was one of my fave venues for a gig. The atmosphere was always spot on and I could get my last bus home just around the corner!
The album the guys were touring, “World Outside” wasn’t one of my favourites, I was feeling they had lost their way a bit at this point, but I loved their first 3 albums and the first 6 albums had all appealed in their differing ways. I was really looking forward to this gig.
The band was mainly a three piece with others who came and went. Richard Butler – vocals, John Ashton – guitar and Tim Butler – bass. Tim and Richard being brothers was reasonably unusual in bands.
This gig would be a fantastic run through the hits from all of those albums and a few new tracks. This would also be a time where I was really happy one track wasn’t played!
It was a big crowd and a few years earlier, the Furs had a massive hit with “Pretty in Pink” off the back of the film of the same name being a box office hit. It’s a cracking track and you should buy the Furs second album “Talk Talk Talk” to hear it in context of the full album, a really fantastic album (my fave album though would be “Forever Now”.
Anyway, the boys in their wisdom decided not to include it on the set, which really didn’t go down well with the hangers on who had only come for that song…….and that, in a nutshell, is the type of edge I like in a band 😉
They did play the other big hit “Heaven” which went down well and played so many great songs that sound even better live than on record.
Set List
- Only You and I
- Here Come Cowboys
- In My Head
- Don’t Be a Girl
- Until She Comes
- Get a Room
- Run and Run
- Love My Way
- Sleep Comes Down
- Alice’s House
- There’s a World
- The Ghost in You
- Better Days
- Heaven
- Forever Now
- No Easy Street
- Mr. Jones
- President Gas
- Dumb Waiters
- Highwire Days
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