Taking the stage tonight at the cavernous Town Hall is the sister duoWard Thomas, and it’s obvious from the first appearance that Catherine is quite heavily pregnant. You would have to be blind not to, so we don’t expect any mad stage dives. Besides that, we were looking forward to a quality night of country crossover music, especially that their new album ‘Music In The Madness’, which became their fourth number one in the country charts, and we got it. The harmonies of these two siblings are very impressive, and as we have seen on many occasions the big danger at the Town Hall as it’s a very tall venue you have to be careful that the setlist doesn’t allow for a stilted atmosphere as it’s also a seated venue. But Catherine and sister Elizabeth pulled it off with a mixture of slower numbers including some acoustic numbers, but making sure that the up tempo hand clapping tunes were played with confidence with some as we have said, brilliant harmonies. Even throwing in a version of Razorlight’s ‘America’, the set seemed to cover all the bases and the pace was spot on and had all on their feet at the end before going into the Brum night, happy to have been here. And we got through without having to rush to hospital.

Photos by Geoff Griffe
Review by Jenny Griffe