Lifehouse live review - Shepards bush - 5th October 2010

Its been a long long wait but after 3 albums Lifehouse has finally returned to the UK for a few sets.

When I was younger I loved Lifehouse and in fact their first album ‘No name face,’ was the first CD I brought from the internet, and to date remains one of my favourite albums. I have been long hoping Lifehouse would return to the UK to tour. It was a long wait but let’s explore whether it was worth it.

Lifehouse can be easily classed as feel good music, with more emphasis on deep lyrics to unique sounds. It’s that band you heard in the background of that Smallville or OC episode you really liked. They have a formula that has remained unchanged since ever since their first album and it has worked well for them.

Going into the concert I was anticipating a greatest hits set as it has been so long since they have been to UK. That was not so much the case. The band stuck to new album material and their most popular singles. The memorable tracks being ‘all in,’ ‘first time,’ ‘broken,’ ‘Spin,’ and ‘hanging by a moment,’

Jason Wade part way through the set decided to ditch the band for a while and pull out the acoustic guitar to do a few numbers. What followed was some interaction with the crowd asking for requests of songs. This was a nice touch however, Jason Wade song about a minute of each song request which was annoying when it came to some of my favourite tracks like ‘blind,’ where it would have been nice to hear the whole thing.

The bassist also had a stab at ‘wrecking ball,’ which turned out well for him and it was nice to see some band interaction. Ill also point out here the new guitarist in the band certainly looked the odd one out with his ac/dc t-shirt while the rest of the band were dressed like they were on the set of Dawsons creek a rather amusing clash.
The encore ended with the predictable fan favourite ‘everything,’ though the band stuck to the more mainstream version on the new deluxe album which was fine but I always preferred the version from the first album.

Overall, it was a great concert for the fans, and the fans loved it, and although I have moved on a lot since I first heard ‘hanging by a moment,’ on a copied cassette on a bus in Greece, it was worth the long wait to see a band I have a lot of history with. If your yet to discover the band I would recommend the first album ‘no name face,’ but if you like your mainstream music then the most recent album ‘smoke and mirrors,’