As the contentious results of NME’s Cool List have shown, notions of hipness are often inexplicable and rarely worth the paper they’re printed on. If a crackhead pissing his talent away is deemed Best of Breed, where do the likes of, say, Embrace stand? Never considered cool or dangerous, their fourth album was about as hotly anticipated as winter until Chris Martin’s Midas touch converted them into an indie Lazarus second only to Morrissey.
Here, at the end of their sold-out UK tour, it becomes apparent that for some, cool can’t compare to community. A no-nonsense band for no-nonsense people, Embrace are the John Smith’s of rock, reliably delivering album upon album of fanfares for the common man with an epic, swelling soul like an extended season of ’60s kitchen sink dramas. In Danny McNamara they have a singer who’s more of a friend than a frontman – his between-song monologues are prosaic and devoid of soundbites but they’re also heartfelt and affectionate. Tonight, he turns his attention to the last time he visited the Palais, as a punter, to watch The Beta Band. “They were making real orange juice while everyone else went out and bought… Kia-Ora,” he blurts.
Appropriately they open with “Ashes” – not merely the first song on the already-platinum “Out Of Nothing” but also their mission statement for the foreseeable future: “Now watch me rise up and leave/All the ashes you made out of me/When you said that we were wrong/Life goes on.” From front-covers to being out of contract after the dissolution of Hut Records, Embrace have had a rough time in the business and only their self-belief – and the patronage of Independiente’s Andy Macdonald – has keep them going. Well, that and their formidable sleeper fanbase, reactivated back in the summer
by “Gravity”. Because whatever doubters might expect, namely that their audience is now made up of Coldplay fans treading water until their heroes return, everyone here knows every word to every song they play – and over a third of the set is culled from their debut album.
The real surprise of the night is Danny's voice – in a good way. One can only assume that he heeded Noel Gallagher’s ill-meant advice to take singing lessons because the once unsure and off-key McNamara had added a depth and range to his pipes you truly have to hear to believe. (He even indulges his new-found talents with an extended set of scales at one point.) At last, he can truly walk the walk and the band has never sounded better. Or more confident – for their early shows, they walked onstage to Public Enemy’s “Don’t Believe The Hype”. Now, older and wiser, they plump for a medley of “Wonderful World” and a little Alison Krauss.
As they said back in 1997, the good will out, and it has. Stick that in your crackpipe and smoke it.
