Travis brought The Man Who LIVE 2018 Tour to Belfast Customs House Square on Wednesday night. Playing their 2nd Album The Man Who (released in 1999) in its entirety plus some of their other favourite tracks and hits such as Flowers in the Window and Sing to the 2,000 strong Belfast crowd.
Coming on to stage a little later than planned, Travis soon made their presence known, Dougie Payne, Andy Dunlop and Neil Primrose came on stage first shortly followed by frontman Fran Healy who came out in a kilt keeping to his and the bands’ Scottish roots. Fortunately, Fran had lost his unkempt beard he had in recent years and now looked a very healthy and clean-shaven frontman once again. The band started playing the first four songs in track order from The Man Who and then preceded to remember a previous Belfast gig they were at when someone in the crowd, threw their knickers on stage. The met with some laughter from the band and crowd. Luckily no such garments ended up on the stage this time.
The band continued to play their second album in track order and when it got to one of their most well-known songs Why Does it Always Rain on Me? Fran and Dougie made a comment that it for once was not raining in Belfast, which was a relief for me personally after being soaked at Kasabian’s gig on Monday. The set progressed, and the main show finished with the whole crowd singing the chorus to Sing.
Then something unusual and unexpected happened. A well-known song intro was being played acoustically but it was not a Travis song, it was actually a Britney Spears song Hit Me Baby One More Time. To myself at the time, I was originally thinking, have they performed this in homage to Britney Spears returning to the UK and Ireland this week. But after the gig, I did a quick search, and this is a regular occurrence at Travis gigs. It was beautifully done and completely their own take on Britney’s famous hit.
Finishing with Flowers In the Window and the crowd singing every word back to the band this was a very fitting end to a lovely gig.
Setlist
Writing to Reach You
The Fear
As You Are
Driftwood
The Last Laugh of Laughter
Turn
Why Does it Always Rain on Me?
Luv
She’s So Strange
Slide Show
Blue Flashing Light
Love Will Come Through
Good Feeling
Side
Closer
My Eyes
Flowers in the Window
Sing
…Baby One More Time
Happy
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