Concert Review: Travis Show Provides Cleveland With a Good Feeling

Scottish rock band Travis took to a Cleveland area stage for the first time in seven years, and the crowd's appetite for the band proved to be ravenous for the five piece outfit. The relatively strong crowd for a Monday night show at the House of Blues was treated to an energetic performance by the most affable band in the music business. The crowd returned the band's energy with loud sing-a-longs.

The band played songs from each one of their six studio albums which date back to 1997's Good Feeling. Intermixed with the old hits were a couple obscure b-sides which were a hit with the hardcore fan base, and a number of tracks from their latest solid release Ode to J Smith, which hit record stores late last year. The sounds ranged from John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band guitar solos from Andy Dunlop, who did some of his axework atop his amplification system, to the softer side of the band in Fran Healy's well received acoustic set, in which he performed the song 20 with just a guitar and with the aid of no microphone.

Lead singer Fran Healy also shared news that his mother was watching the show from the side of the stage and surprised the adoring crowd when he brought his Apple laptop to show that he was beaming the show using iChat so his mother could watch back home in Glasgow. He updated his Twitter account today with a message that read:

Cleveland you ROCKED. Had a live ichat on stage tonight with my mum. The crowd waved. She waved back. On bus now. Toronto tomorrow.

The band, which had hit the Cleveland area 4 times in the span of two years before their hiatus in the Northeast Ohio, tried to make it up to the crowd for not hitting the town by adding an additional songs to the set list. The show ended which with an acoustic rendition of the 2003 single "Flowers in the Window", featuring the band arm-in-arm smiling from ear to ear at center stage. Healy, who is famous for his stage banter and was in rare form on the evening with a story about a traffic stop in Detroit as the highlight, promised to come back sometime soon. With a show as well put together as this evening turned out he is sure to have repeat customers, and most importantly, probably impressed his mother who was watching at home.

More photos from the show:

Set list:
1 Intro- 3 Times & You Lose
2 Chinese Blues
3 Writing To Reach You
4 J Smith
5 Selfish Jean
6 Re-Offender
7 Something Anything
8 Long Way Down
9 Love Will Come Through
10 Closer
11 Driftwood
12 As You Are
13 “Side Wide Open”
14 Falling Down – Fran in crowd
15 Sing
16 Humpty Dumpty Love Song
17 My Eyes
18 All I Want To Do Is Rock
19 Before You Were Young
20 Turn
Encore
21: 20
22 Ring Out The Bell
23 More Than Us
24 Blue Flashing Light
25 Why Does It Always Rain On Me?
26 Flowers In The Window