Ellie Goulding inspired I decided to dig out my Catatonia stuff and give it another listen. It must have been awhile since I’d not a single mp3 in iTunes, having never ripped any from my CDs (of which I’ve a few).
I got hooked on Catatonia with the Way Beyond Blue album, but like Idlewild they seemed to progressively lose the shine for me with each additional album. International Velvet has perhaps the most rubbish opening song of any album ever, but it does have I Am the Mob on it which redeems everything (I could listen to that forever - oh and Don’t Need the Sunshine). Equally Cursed and Blessed is kind of a nothing album for me (Storm the Palace and Dazed, Beautiful and Bruised are alright). And Paper, Scissors, Stones, well not even the “screechy vocals” (and Cery’s voice is best like that) of Is Everybody Here on Drugs? does it for me - I like the artwork more than the album.
All that though, doesn’t detract from the how good Sweet Catatonia, Lost Cat and Bleed still are, and the good memories of the gig in Bradford - I may well have seen them more than once, but that’s the only one I can remember: Everyone stood at the end of the gig, facing the stage, waiting for them to come back on and I looked out of the window to the side and saw them wandering out of the building. So I waved, shrugged my shoulders and went to the bar.