Time: June 24^th 2003

Place: Cornerhouse, Middlesbrough, England

Event: The Thrills on tour

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written by Michelle Loughlin

Got to the gig fashionably late, ticket said show starts at 7, we got there at 10 past! disaster, the doors were well n truly shut, but we could see the band inside havin a drink n Conor was reading a book to pass the time! after waiting for about an hour, the band came out of a side door to go to their tourbus, Aid and I decided it was now or never and went after them to shouts of Conor! We asked if we could have a photo n he said yes of course, and patiently waited while 3 of us had pics taken individually, and he thanked us and said see you all later!

The Cornerhouse is a typical small sweaty place, perfect for a show, and to make it even more perfect the stage is as high as a coffee table and not much higher! The show started with The Zutons, very Coralesque, but better!! They had some light-hearted banter with the hecklers, and rocked through seven songs, Creepin an a Crawlin being the single that everyone knew and sang along with, their mothers would be proud!

Now for the show, The Thrills came on in a haze of smoke and the cheers nearly took the rest of the peeling paint off the roof, as the first song, Don't Steal Our Sun, pounded into life. They blistered their way through more songs from the debut album, all much punkier n energetic than i anticipated. Highlights were the singles of course, my favourite, 1 Horse Town, particularly pogoed me stick!!!

Daniel and Padraic swapped guitars half way through the set, just because they could, they loved every minute of the show, and it showed! Daniel showed his appreciation of the crowd by doing a spot of crowd surfing, not once, but twice!!! They lapped up the photograph taking and posed with silly faces for us all, shame my flash didn't work when he stuck his face in my lens!

We went to the aftershow party, as we were all invited, and sat in a smiley daze with a beer while waiting for the boys to come in! When they did they couldn't have been more friendly and appreciative of us coming to the show. They signed anything we threw at them, checking they had names spelt right and Padraic even spoke to my son on the phone, what a legend!!

The Thrills despite some worry on my part that they wouldn't live up to their name certainly did the business at the Cornerhouse, my only regret is that they won't be repeating it in Oct, but I'm glad we caught them while we could.