Auntie Mabel featured a drummer, a keyboardist, a saxophonist (who also played flute on one track), guitarist, bassist, and a singer who came on stage wearing a Friesian cow patterned cape! There were surprisingly good actually. I like saxophones in contemporary music anyway, but more importantly I liked the whole "we're having fun" attitude of the band.
It's almost like they don't take themselves too seriously but that is perhaps unfair, as would be saying they're "tongue in cheek" pop stars. This is because they write "proper" songs and play "proper music", and do it very well. But unlike a lot of bands some of the songs have a sense of humour, and the singer jumps about with the other band members like he's a big kid, thoroughly enjoying the fact that he's on stage singing to loads of people! He does Mick Jagger-esque poses for example, and silly air guitar poses! Also importantly there was a lot of interaction between the band and the audience. This was partly due to some-one throwing mints onto the stage. The singer and the drummer ate their mints (after picking them up off the floor) and asked for more now and again, or chewing gum or any other "goodies" the crowd may have!
Now to talk about the music! As usual it was hard to describe. They didn't really sound the same as anyone else I can think of off the top of my head (a good thing)! Style wise I guess pop-jazz-indie-metal, which is not really a very helpful description I know, but I think I would like to see them again, because I enjoyed both the music and the show they put on. Kind of an unusual choice of support band since they don't sound like either Mansun or Gay Dad, and the singer seemed more conformable chatting with the crowd than the singers of the other 2 bands!
When Gay Dad went onto the stage they launched straight into their punk/70s metal music, and it was loud, too loud. It's hard to say whether it was the fault of the band, the band's technicians, the Guildhall's technicians or something else, but the left speaker was really not very happy when the singer hit certain notes. The distortion just made everything sound a mess which was annoying because parts of it sounded excellent, almost like Smashing Pumpkins heavy stuff, and it was almost impossible to hear the female vocalist, although she only sung on a couple of numbers.
After a few songs I managed to get into this band. They didn't seem to be anything too special, and there was no real interaction with the crowd, but I think I'd like to see them again to really make up my mind about them without dodgy sound. Out of interest the band consist of a singer/guitarist, bassist, female guitarist, and a drummer.
Mansun were greeted by typical headliner's applause. The band started as they meant to go on, i.e. full of energy, and almost non stop, but in Mansun tradition again the only crowd interaction was introducing song titles, apart from when the singer nearly broke the microphone while swinging it around in A1 rock star fashion! He did however leap about like a madman possessed in songs where he doesn't play guitar, and did seem to enjoy himself, especially the obligatory post final song whirl guitar menacingly round head and jumping on drums type action!
As expected they did a mix of new and old songs, classics such as Stripper Vicar, Wide Open Space, an incredible version of Taxloss were there with Legacy and Being a Girl and other new songs.
All in all it was a good gig, but not a great one, Mansun seemed to be plagued by the same sound problems as Gay Dad, so sadly I didn't enjoy Mansun as much as I did when I saw them last year.
Mansun's offical web site