Treat for Travis fans

TRAVIS

High Lodge, Thetford, last night

THOUSANDS of fans streamed to Thetford Forest prepared for a rain-soaked concert - only for the day's thunderstorms to clear to blue sky in time for Travis.

Nevertheless the band saved Why Does It Always Rain On Me until the last number, maybe for fear of tempting fate.

From the moment he made his entrance through the crowd, frontman Fran Healy had an entertaining night.

He found a woman lying in his arms, after she was swept backwards by a security guard.

Then he broke up a scuffle in the front row, saying; “Hey I'm the boss here. You're at a Travis concert you know, not a Metallica one!”

Later he launched his guitar into the air in a fit of showbiz pique, only for it to crash down to earth, and promptly confessed that the wire had caught and he'd nearly been smacked on the head by the instrument.

New band member Klaus 'the Swede' flew in to play the keyboard, and the audience chanted Klaus! Klaus! Klaus! to pile the pressure on him.

The Glasgow-formed band was in Suffolk as part of its UK tour, which includes five forest dates this month .

Healy described making their new album The Boy With No Name, as 'like coming out of the forest" so it was appropriate that they played several of new tracks at Thetford. The audience already loved Selfish Jean, My Eyes - a song about Healy welcoming his son in to the world - and Battleships.

But I loved the 'busking' version of Flowers in the Window, where lead guitarist Andy Dunlop, whose larger-than-life antics were always appreciated by the audience, stood behind Healy and slipped his arm through to play Healy's guitar.

Turn was another favourite from the past, and everyone tried a mass 'pogo jump' for the final chorus of Why Does it Always Rain on Me? to round off a great concert.

Tracey Sparling

N Van Morrison plays at High Lodge, Thetford tonight .