October 22nd 2016 – The Barrington Centre, Ferndown
A little bit different tonight in many ways. Firstly this wasn’t The Wonder Stuff, it was Miles and Erica, but playing their stuff and the Stuffies stuff.
Secondly, this wasn’t your usual venue. Never did I think (with due respect) the Miles Hunt would play Ferndown!! But, now in folk lore….I was there!
I’m getting used to Miles turning up in strange places, The Stuffies at Kettering Arena and Walsall FC set the tone, so why not a fairly straightforward club in Ferndown, Dorset.
The Barrington Centre at the time was booking a few mid range well known bands, I’d seen in 2015 they booked From the Jam, Bruce Foxton’s version of The Jam, so really good to see them get Miles and Erica.
The layout was strange, tables set up on the dance floor in cabaret style….hmmm…not expecting raucous stage diving tonight then!
Miles Hunt & Erica Nockalls
We were still coming to terms with the venue in the interval between support band (who was a local singer I think?) and wondering whether the tour manager had visited beforehand. As a venue it is a big hall with separate bar, I wouldn’t have said it was designed for music and acoustically, the metal roof looked ominous for echo!
In fairness it wasn’t bad and the block brick walls actually seemed to make the sound quality good (NEC, take note!).
As usual a great performance from, great set of songs and mix from the new and old albums and I don’t think they played “Dizzy”, but they played so much good stuff I don’t think anyone would have minded. a big dance along to Size of a Cow.
Erica and Miles are such fun together and this acoustic guitar and violin sound was still pretty powerful as was Mile’s voice. He read a couple of pieces from his book too (which was available for signing later…..which I duly did for a good friend of mine’s impending 50th)
Ending on a rousing “Here comes everything” was fantastic and really wonderful performance. To chat to the artists afterwards at signings can sometimes feel a bit forced, but these two are regular guys and genuinely appeared interested, not only in what we all thought and did, but how we got to be “stuffies” in the first place.
A great night out in Ferndown.
Set List
- Don’t You Ever
- Be Thy Name (The Wonder Stuff)
- Manna From Heaven
- Friendly Company (The Wonder Stuff)
- On the Ropes (The Wonder Stuff)
- Mission Drive (The Wonder Stuff)
- Circlesquare (The Wonder Stuff)
- The Cake
- For the Broken Hearted (The Wonder Stuff)
- Ruby Horse (The Wonder Stuff)
- Golden Green (The Wonder Stuff)
- Size of a Cow (The Wonder Stuff)
- Caught in My Shadow (The Wonder Stuff)
- Room 512, All the News That’s Fit to Print (The Wonder Stuff)
- Here Comes Everyone (The Wonder Stuff)
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