OCEAN COLOUR SCENE PERFORMING AT TK. MAXX PRESENTS
SOUTHAMPTON SUMMER SESSIONS AT GUILDHALL
WITH SUPPORT FROM CAST & ECHOBELLY.

★★★★☆ (4/5)

**OCEAN COLOUR SCENE PERFORMING AT TK. MAXX PRESENTS… SOUTHAMPTON SUMMER SESSIONS 2025 AT GUILDHALL**
**PHOTOCREDIT: ALIA THOMAS**

As the Sun slowly set on Southampton city centre on the final Friday in June, Guildhall Square came alive with another of the many TK Max Summer Sessions it hosts every year. This time, with a nostalgic lineup of British 90s rock/Britpop in the form of Ocean Colour Scene as stage headliners, with support from Liverpudlians finest, Cast, and Echobelly, hailing from London. The vibe of the show was a lovely one, with an audience of all ages, people bringing their kids and grandkids. It’s a lovely thing to witness music connecting so many generations together.

Echobelly kicked off the evening with their interesting sound of what could be described as pop-rock, perhaps? The soft vocals of lead singer Sonya Maden are nicely juxtaposed against the punchy music which almost makes their music a little hard to define, but whatever it is, it works. Unfortunately at this point the crowd was rather thin, but it didn’t seem to put off Echobelly continuing with a strong performance and helping the crowd to get into the zone ready for the rest of the evening.

Next up was Cast, a band from Liverpool headed by none other than John Power, father of Stone’s Fin Power. With some good old Britpop/Indie Rock, the band were total crowd-pleasers, and with that Scouse bravado and accent everyone loves, it’s clear why these guys are supporting Oasis on their upcoming tour. By this point the audience had filled out a little more and had really started to get going. With some of their older songs on the setlist such as Sandstorm, Walkaway and Fine Time, the energy from the crowd increased with a lot of singing back of the lyrics, but it wasn’t just the old ones that were welcomed with open arms. Playing a couple of songs from their latest album brought out last year on top of this posed for a very successful set, with Love is the Call being a clear winner.

To top off the night we had our headliners, Ocean Colour Scene. Over their career spanning 36 years, the band have achieved a hell of a lot including five top 10 albums with one hitting number 1 in the 90’s, along with seventeen top 40 singles and six top 10 singles to date. From this, they’ve built an impressive fanbase as you can imagine, however that unfortunately still didn’t lead to a sold out show this time. The fans that were there were seemingly long-term fans, with the majority of the audience likely being 50s and upwards, and the sea of mobile phones that you normally see taking videos of different parts of performances was interestingly almost non-existent. However, the band were on great form with Simon Fowler continuing to bring his brilliant vocals, and Steve Craddock giving an incredibly impressive performance as usual with his talent on guitar. With a set list comprising of all their Spotify top songs bar one, including The Circle, Travellers Tune, and Better Day, the reception from the crowd was very positive. Many were dancing, lots were singing, and plenty were doing both. Behind the band a large screen displayed an array of different visuals relating to each song as they played them. A particularly memorable song which seems incredibly relevant and poignant again for current times was Profit In Peace, with a compilation of visuals from old protests accompanying it. The crowd increased in volume each time as they sung “we don’t wanna fight no more”. The show ended with fan-favourite, The Day We Caught The Train, which rounded off a perfect evening rocking down memory lane. The general vibe was fun and familiar. It felt safe, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. For Ocean Colour Scene this was a good start to their run of shows throughout the Summer, and a successful beginning of the end of Southampton Summer Sessions for another year.