Filling their chosen venue to capacity as usual, delirious? chose to wrap up 1999 with a relaxed show, mixing old favorites with new standards and a few tasters of what 2000 will bring.

Some warm-up came from Ruth, an independent four piece whose sound showed strong influences from early Blur material, but with slightly less of the punk edge. Their set was energy filled and consistent and although perhaps the sound is a little too dated to break through just at the moment, they acquitted themselves extremely well.

Delirious? came on stage to the sounds of an ecstatic crowd. Slipping straight into the now standard opener "Bliss," they revealed that a number of the tracks from Mezzamorphis work better live than they did on disc--stripping out a lot of the studio effects gives the songs more focus and clarity. The band continue to develop--not only was Stu Garrard's trademark gotee gone, along with all but a strip of Stewart Smith's hair, but some of the instrumental contributions also showed that the band had been working hard.

For the third song, the band had a little surprise for the crowd. Although the secret had been given away in these days of internet discussion groups by fans who'd attended shows earlier in the tour, the return of "Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble" to the set was a very popular move. The song still sounds good amongst the newer material, and there was no need for Martin Smith to sing as the crowd carried the song along regardless. The same happened later in the set when the sounds of "Not Ashamed" were greeted with rapturous applause. This tour will put to rest any "selling out" rumors.

The band was extremely relaxed on stage, talking about how they were looking forward to Christmas and how glad they were to be on home turf. It is always good to see a band which enjoys being with its audience, but some of the pauses between songs were rather over-long without a great deal of content, which didn't help the overall impact of the band's set.

A new track, "Show Me Heaven," gave a taste of a slightly heavier side of  delirious? The sound was very much riff-based stadium rock, and Stu Garrard contributed an excellent, fairly traditional guitar solo. The song could do with some work to increase its focus, but was well received.

The next single, "It's OK," worked well and seemed popular with the enthusiastic lighting technicians as they used the mirror ball to good effect. Without their usual video screens, the band made good use of Shepherd's Bush Empire's shape and size in their lighting effects, but perhaps there should have been some warning before using strobe-like flashing lights, as it made more than one person in the audience uncomfortable.

A few tracks were rather weak, particularly "Follow" and "Blindfold," the former of which sounded rather thin. The musical interlude at the end of "Blindfold," a little more experimental than most of the band's work, lifted the ending to that song.

Returning, predictably, for an encore--they hadn't yet played "Deeper"--delirious? seemed to enjoy their latest outing to London, and the fans did too. Unfortunately the set seemed a little patchy, with the gaps between some songs and a few weaker tracks detracting from the band's obvious tightness and increasing selection of strong material.

Set List:

Bliss (Mezzamorphis)
Gravity (Mezzamorphis)
Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble (Cutting Edge)
See The Star (Mezzamorphis)
Show Me Heaven (new)
It's OK (Mezzamorphis) (slipping into a verse of "I Could Sing of Your
Love Forever" from Cutting Edge)
Sanctify (King of Fools)
Kiss Your Feet (Mezzamorphis)
Not Ashamed (Cutting Edge)
Heaven (Mezzamorphis)
Pale Reflection (Mezzamorphis)
Blindfold (Mezzamorphis)
History Maker (King of Fools)