Gary Lawrence finds himself alone in whooping for rousing indie-rockers The Coral - but wonders why the crowd were so quiet...

THE last time I saw The Coral was in 2005 and I wading knee-deep through Glastonbury mud to catch their set amid a boisterous crowd that never ceased its swaying and surging from the first note to the last.

What a contrast at the O2 in Oxford on Tuesday night.

Playing upstairs in the smaller room, they attracted a decent 500-ish strong crowd who had waited patiently waited through a support act that was accompanied by a drummer who seemed intent on replicating the noise made by a wheelie bin full of wet cement being dropped down every step of a tower block.

But where the appearance of the band ought to have prompted at least relief, if not excitement, the audience maintained its impression of a mannequin warehouse.

The Coral have been around for more than 15 years and they showed it in their assured opening numbers from new album Distance Inbetween. After leading the guitar band revolution of the early 2000s they have swapped styles several times and new tracks Connector, Chasing The Tail Of A Dream and Miss Fortune come with echoes of Kasabian.

With a bit of cash behind them the band can afford a fancy video backdrop that paints them in psychedelic Warhol happening-like colours. The wizardry isn’t quite perfected and the fiddling about in the breaks between songs are more noticeable because the screen goes blank while someone fires up the next video. It lent the set a fractured air that wasn’t helped by frontman James Skelly’s reluctance to say much to the audience.

Maybe it was the new material, maybe it was just because it was Tuesday night but the audience seemed unmoved even as the band moved through earlier, catchier, material like 2007 hit Jacqueline. Even festival favourite In The Morning raised barely a ripple.

It was only when the band left the stage that the crowd showed any sign of life as applause and whistles took us through the usual encore pantomime. I wouldn’t have blamed them for not returning but back they came with a rousing rendition of standout 2002 single Dreaming Of You and a foot-stomping, plectrum-mangling, head-banging performance of guitar-fest Fear Machine from the new album to close the show. That at least elicited some whooping. Mostly from me.

As we edged towards the exit I caught the eye of the band’s merchandise man who had been as busy all night as a veal stall at a vegan festival. His stall was in the room’s most inhospitable corner, ignored by the audience and buffeted by an icy gale blowing through an open door. It could only have been made less pleasant if someone had turned a fire extinguisher on him.

As I walked past his untouched stack of Coral T-shirts, that just seemed to underline the indifference, we shared a look that said ‘why did they bother?’.

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