CityLife

Doves

"HELLO Eastlands ... car park!".

It's not the most glamorous setting for a gig, as Doves frontman Jimi Goodwin acknowledges, joking that he told his family he was playing the stadium.

And to make matters worse it's absolutely lashing it down with the type of unseasonal, diagonal, sting your eyes wet stuff that Manchester specialises in.

The reason why we're all stood in a sodden car park in Eastlands on a Friday night is to see this Umbro-sponsored shebang to promote the new City strip.

The first 2,500 City fans to order next season's new shirt were each given a pair of tickets for the show, which also featured local lads The Answering Machine, Kid British, Twisted Wheel and DJ Mike Pickering.

But looking round the sodden car park it seems plenty of those have been put off by the weather and decided to stay at home, meaning for those who've braved the elements this is a a rare opportunity to see Doves on a relatively small stage following their festival appearances and Delamere Forest shows earlier this year.

And if ever there was a band suited to the grey skies and Gor-Tex on display here it's Doves.

Euphoric

Their sometimes melancholic, sometimes euphoric northern soul seems right at home in amongst the housing estates, retail parks and bypasses of East Manchester.

Opener Jetstream, the first track from this year's Kingdom of Rust album, sets the mood with its house-influenced beat getting the umbrella waving crowd moving.

It's followed quickly by Pounding, which gets the beery crowd singing and jumping along.

City fan Goodwin is on good form leading the crowd through a 'doo wop' sing-a-long of terrace favourite Blue Moon.

And the much maligned - and freshly neutered - B of the Bang sculpture even gets a mention, with Jimi complaining how, shorn of it spikes, the artwork looks like a 'eunuch'.

The Man Who Told Everything, from debut album Lost Souls, with it chorus of 'blue skies ahead' raises a wry smile but can't shift the gloom overhead.

But that doesn't deter the crowd, who go mad for Black and White Town.

After the Cedar Room the band return for an encore of  Here It Comes (with its video backdrop of archive footage from the Wigan Casino), The Last Broadcast, There Goes the Fear and another rendition of Blue Moon, which sends the crowd home, damp but happy and looking forward to a new season with their mega bucks owners.

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