Sunday 25/06/06 Embrace, Morning Runner @ Dalby Forest, Pickering

Unfortunately, a combination of traffic plus random health and safety regulations (no brollies allowed – what’s that all about?) means that we missed Anechoic; so we’re greeted by the chimes of Morning Runner upon arriving at Dalby Forest. The foursome make the perfect support for Embrace – like the headliners, they play pretty dull indie rock.  The major snag is that, unlike Embrace, they don’t even do it with any cheeky banter or excitement. The songs drone out one after the other, with the only vaguely memorable moment being ‘It’s Not Like Everyone’s My Friend.’ At the end you’re left feeling that the band need to put in a bit a hell of a lot more effort if they want to get anywhere in this cut throat industry, not to mention writing better tunes. Still, the easily-satisfied audience seemed to like it – perhaps a particularly bad sign – legions of people with debatable taste enjoying dull music can’t surely be good?  Which leads nicely onto the main act…

Daft indie hair?  Check.  Football shirts?  Check.  Oh, it must be Embrace.  Well, although the band play uninspiring, dreary rubbish, it has to be said, they’re not bad performers.  Frontman Danny McNamara seems like a very nice guy, but ultimately, that’s not what you want to see at a gig.  The music is somewhat more important, which is where Embrace fall down.  Riding high after England’s footballing victory, the crowd obviously enjoyed the piss-poor World Cup ‘anthem’ ‘World At Your Feet’ – a song which is simply just not catchy enough to be declared a footie classic.  The omnipresent ‘Gravity’ rose the pulses slightly amongst the revellers, yet it all falls short of being inspiring.

Thankfully, penultimate track ‘Ashes’ was surprisingly quite decent – it’s just that by this time McNamara’s voice was shot to pieces (too much shouting at the football?) and it really should have been their last track. There’s little doubting that Embrace are accomplished performers and kept the crowd on a high – but it just seems unfair that a band with such a lacklustre arsenal of songs are so successful when other exciting bands are falling by the wayside.