Nostalgia is cyclical, you’ll often find the most popular songs on the radio were released either several days ago or twenty years ago. Scouting girls are on their second decade as a band and they’ve chosen to celebrate their second album, EverybodyWants to Be on TV, on its 16th anniversary. The Souls and Billy Locket also joined as support. 


First up was The Souls, a Liverpool based indie band. Their sound has that kind of 80s movie prom feeling with its chorus drenched guitar work and anthemic Bon Jovi style choruses. The Souls may not have had the biggest crowd but the early start may have had an effect but they still played like they had a full arena. Tracks like Run Baby Run and their brilliant cover of David Bowie’s Heroes made for a fantastic introduction to the night. 


Next up was Billy Locket, a solo pianist who not only has been putting in the work to get where he is but also maintains the same passion and love of music and its performance after all these years. With his heartwarming tales about his father being his biggest fan which lead to the beautiful track Things Are Looking Up and his deep introspective outlook on the purpose of music, it’s hard to walk away from this set without a sense of optimism. His set ended with a sea of torch lights on I Could Use a Friend and on that glorious bit of warmth, he exited the stage and left the audience with their thoughts as they waited for Scouting for Girls. 


After a bit of a break and an intro featuring The Sun Always Shines on TV (the best A-Ha song), Scouting for Girls made their way to the stage and burst straight into Famous. The entire crowd was already dancing throughout the entire track, even throughout the long improvised call and response bits which would be a recurring occurrence in the show. 

You’d be forgiven for thinking Scouting for Girls were just a competent gang of musicians that happened to be great songwriters but there was actually a great deal of stellar musicianship. Little Miss Naughty featured an infectious bassline and even a tasty little guitar solo from Jamie O’Gorman, who repeatedly got to show off his chops on tracks like Posh Girls which was met with wild applause and feral screaming and dancing.

In between the joyous and lively bangers like the double time punky drumming of 1+1 and the piano riffs of Keep Them Smiling, which launched into an impromptu cover of Come on Eileen much to the delight of the increasingly intoxicated crowd, there were a cavalcade of sad songs. The eternal classic, This Ain’t a Love Song, filled the room and that 14 year old sadness came flooding back for so many. It may be a bit cheesy or juvenile but it was a part of the lives of many in the crowd and it’s important to keep that alive however you can. 

Scouting for Girls are a quintessential part of British culture at this point and make no qualms about displaying that with the fun filled I Wish I was James Bond, a sentence that many British people have parroted, and Posh Girls dealing with the complex nature of dealing with class and gender at the same time but with more a light hearted approach. Most of these tracks came with fun little monologues from Roy Stride and bits of interactive crowd work so the crowd were rarely given downtime amidst the singing and dancing and the classic iconic Freddie Mercury call and response bit. 


The ragers just kept coming towards the end of the show as a barrage of millennial school disco tracks came flooding in; Heartbeat, Elvis Ain’t Dead and She’s So Lovely. The nostalgia was cutting deep as frontman Roy Stride belted out these songs with the same passion as the day it was written. These Are the Good Old Days captured the feeling that these songs convey with its warm glowing nostalgia beaming from the stage and just like that, everyone became a teenager again despite having absolutely knackered knees. 


Overall, Scouting for Girls were more than just an act cruising on nostalgia like many others, they actually have more to offer and for those who wrote them off as just a boy band or filler on the Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging soundtrack, give them another listen. If the new record doesn’t win you over, perhaps the live show will. If you missed this show then you catch them again on February 12th at the AO Arena in Manchester.