Altsounds - Echobelly [Live] @ MoHo Live, Manchester

Was this a just lovely moment or an Echobelly resurgence? Is it ever a good idea to revisit your idols and heroes? Not that I was ever an obsessive Echobelly fan, but they sure had something back in the Britpop day. Tonight at MoHo, it being an acoustic set and all, I was expecting something like a folk club night, so was somewhat surprised that there were going to be four support bands.

A quick run down of the rest of the bill, in the order they appeared -

Bleachbaby - girl fronted pop band, competent enough, but I'm sorry to say way off the mark in comparison to recent new bands like Marina and the Diamonds, Rosie and the Goldbug et al. Is it a competition? Well yes, I guess it must be. They must have some confidence though, as they came ready equipped with T-shirt stall, and you could only have a badge and sticker if you bought a CD, so there! Maybe I'll be proved wrong and they will be the next big thing. Maybe not. They seemed like nice people, and that really is damning with faint praise.

Next up was Jade Assembly. This was slightly wonderful in a minor way. Grating buzz guitar harking back to 70s rock and powerful vocals from the main man John 'Foz' Foster had me there for a minute or two, and this from a reviewer who (all my friends will tell you) only really listens to female vocalists. Mention is due too of bassist James Halliwell who shone through and was too cool for school, looking like an extra from Apocalypse Now. The only problem was Foster's ego. Given that they were second in a line-up of four support bands, Foz's disappointment at the lack of instantaneous applause was really quite funny. He actually called us, the audience "miserable bastards". Get over it already, be a pro, try playing to 10 people in Crewe...

They were followed by Faker Junior, who were actually pretty darn good and the only ones I followed up. They are the mating of a Mancunian band looking for a singer, and Canadian singer looking for a band. I try and avoid comparisons, but in a live setting they had me somewhat in mind of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. I've listened to them since on MySpace and the production on their recorded output is much too generic, makes them sound like any other Woodstock era American guitar band and the vocal qualities need teasing out. In the flesh, singer Ryan Lamey really does have a delicate, not quite plaintive but slightly keening quality to his voice that made them, for me, the find of the night. I'm trying to find words to pigeon-hole their genre. All I can come up with is, if you like Lloyd Cole or even Elliott Smith you might like Faker Junior.

Final support were Our Fold. A very competent rock band I'm sure. Well actually I'm not sure at all. It was my own fault for being perched on the barrier directly in front of the stage, but this lot were loud. And I mean loud - as in Spinal Tap's knobs go to 11, Our Fold go to 12. The unfortunate effect was that I could hear the guitars through the stage monitors, but when the singer opened his mouth, I did not hear anything whatsoever. No vocals at all. Nothing. Actually the singer himself commented to a supporter in the audience that he thought he'd just gone deaf. So (a) not my kind of music anyway and (b) I just couldn't hear it. It genuinely made me quite worried for my hearing.

And on to Echobelly, or more accurately Sonya Aurora Madan and Glenn Johansson, who have anyway been the essential soul of Echobelly over the years. Glenn did all the stage setup - that being two stools, two mics and one acoustic guitar, with all the time me rattling my head trying to get my hearing to readjust in time for something rather more unplugged. Sonya waited in the wings until all was set and then came on to fairly rapturous applause.

It's hardly a new thing to go and see bands five, 10 or even 20 years later. Certainly I've done it and never given it a second thought. For Echobelly though I inevitably return to what it was that hooked me in the first place. Yes it was crunching guitars, yes it was those excellent pop hooks, yes it was thought-out lyrics, even if sometimes the politics in the early writings were so earnest as to be a bit risky. I mean for heaven's sake anyone who can work the words "half the population, 1% of wealth" really is deserving of awe. More than anything though, the thing that had Echobelly hook me back into the 90s was Sonya's voice. Back then I always thought it was just so archetypal English in a wide open, clear as a bell and full of confidence kind of way. That was what Echobelly had then. The risky thing was to see what Echobelly have now.

Sonya made quite a few telling comments. She told us that it was Echobelly's first ever acoustic gig, she told us that it was the first time they had played live in five years, but that they were looking for more. I'm pretty certain that she said it was the first time she had sung at all in five years, although that was a bit of an aside and perhaps poetic licence. She also said that she felt naked, and that I can understand. Echobelly had obviously not been sitting in a time warp, as the set was a mixture of old favourites such as Cold Feet, Warm Heart but also new writing. One of these was second song of the night 'Word's Out'.

There was a lot of love for Echobelly coming from the audience tonight. Sonya commented that she was quite touched to realise that her words were being sung back to her by the audience. I think she was almost surprised to still have devoted fans, but they were there singing every word and some even looking a tiny bit choked and emotional. Sonya's comment encouraged more, created a virtuous circle, so that by the time we got to 'Great Things' it was more or less a sing-a-long, that being no bad thing as that song has a fabulous chorus, both empowering and easy to remember. Sonya was very deliberate in her phrasing all night, she reminded me a little of a primary school teacher at times, making sure the kids get all the words.

They played maybe ten numbers, and when they finished, took the set list with them - a telling gesture I thought. I was close enough to half read it though, and they definitely cut it short by a couple of songs. All of this leads me to the inevitable comparison of Echobelly then and Echobelly now. Bearing in mind the five year gap, my ears being ruined from the support band, the fact that it was just two of them and an acoustic guitar and no studio polish, it bore up pretty damn well. Sonya's voice has changed and matured but it's still very much her. I have to say the voice went on the blink once or twice tonight which might well be why the set apparently got shortened and there was no encore. But overall, yes this was still very definitely Sonya Aurora Madan singing with her band Echobelly. I'm sure Sonya and Glenn are sitting somewhere making the same comparisons, and they should be reassured.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Echobelly do next. Don't leave it another five years, that's all!