Review: The Hoosiers, HMV

Rosie Macleod • Published 27 Aug 2010 17:30

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THE HOOSIERS released their debut album, The Trick To Life, in 2007 and love them or hate them, it shot straight to number one.

Three years on and now they’ve ditched the fancy dress and are back with their second album, The Illusion Of Safety, and seeing as lead singer, Irwin Sparkes, hailing from Woodley, is possibly the second most famous person to come from Reading - Ricky Gervais of course being first - it seemed only right that they put on a nice free show for fans.

A small stage area had been set up in front of the T-shirts inside the store, with a not-enormous-but-not-tiny crowd gathered between the CD shelves, ready for the band to make a grand entrance.

Opening their set with Worried About Ray, an overly loud piano gave us all a bit of a shock.

Irwin Sparkes’ voice prevailed quite spectacularly throughout the set, flipping between falsetto and baritone with ease (and almost, but not quite, arrogance), regardless of whether you find these boys annoying or not, there’s no way of denying that Sparkes is really rather talented.

The band ended their set with the current single Choices which was without a doubt the best live, partly because there was no overwhelming backing vocals and partly because it is irritatingly catchy pop music. Not an award-winning performance, but then it was only ever meant to be a nice promotion for their new album.

This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 26 Aug 10

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