Monday 28th April 2025 saw The Lathums showing up as part of their ‘Matter Does Not Define Intimate Record Store Tour’ in association with Banquet Records, support coming from Laurie Wright.

It was an evening that started with much promise but ultimately did not measure up to expectations.

Laurie Wright

Winner of a Libertine’s ‘Talented Fan’ contest in 2020, Laurie Wright has been grinding hard to get a career going. Various names in the industry have given support and guidance including Pete Doherty and Liam Gallagher. Last years double headline tour with The Molotovs has clearly built a friendship as we spot Mathew Cartlidge hanging out with the band at their merch stand afterwards.

Laurie does not waste his thirty-minute slot. He goes at it hard, kicking off with ‘Rock and Roll Ain’t Dead While Were Living’ and then the much stronger recent single ‘Talk Of The Town.’ Laurie basically ignores the last 40 years of musical evolution and plies a mix of influences from the 60s through to the 80s. If you like your music straight forward and your guitar tracks switching between ballads and 60s Liverpool/punk/mod-tinged faster efforts, then Laurie has got you covered.

He has an intriguing band. The bass player looks like he walked in from The Dandy Warhols, his male backing singer and harmonica player brings a certain amount of main character energy and the drummer is an absolute unit of explosive motion. Everything goes into the performance; Laurie holds nothing back. The high energy lands well with some areas of the crowd and Laurie appreciates the positive response. Whilst he seems out of touch with the modern music scene and there is the occasional moment that leans close to cringe, you cannot deny his enthusiasm and commitment and what he does well, he does very decently.

The Lathums

ELO’s ‘Last Train To London’ is The Lathum’s entrance song. It makes a lot of sense. The funky disco melody, the vocal range, the playful indie sensibilities. Whilst The Lathums are not ELO they certainly understand their bag of tricks. Leaning heavily into new album Matter Does Not Define they kick off with ‘No Direction.’ I want to say it was the start of a brilliant gig, which is what I was expecting, however it isn’t. The sound mix is just all wrong. The drums and bass are too high in the mix, Alex Moore’s vocals are too low. They complete the song and there is applause and appreciation, but it has already knocked my mood.

Moving into ‘Say My Name’ and ‘Leave No Stone Unturned’ bassist Matty Murphy gestures to the sound desk that he needs to be louder – I have no idea what he was hearing in terms of monitors, but this was the opposite of what was needed. I find myself switching my earplugs from a 10 decibel reduction to 19, which I haven’t done at a gig since I was down the front for The Prodigy at Reading Festival last year. At times I can still feel my ear drums taking a hit. Pryzm is not a large venue, it doesn’t need what they are trying to output.

There are still moments to savour. ‘Stellar Cast’ and ‘Heartbreaker’s shine cannot be completely ruined. Alex Moore sends the rest of the band packing for a couple of minutes to play ‘All My Life’ on acoustic guitar. It is lovely, we can hear the song as it is intended. There is much humour at the start as well as Alex stops because he catches a member of the crowd yawning, he feigns much mock-disgust. I hope for another acoustic one, but the band are straight back out and the balance is still well out.

After ‘Sad Face Baby’ they are saying their goodbyes. As they depart the DJ puts on a song and the house lights come up. It is obvious there will be no encore. Perhaps my expectations were too high for what was a bargain gig at today’s prices but we have not even had ‘Long Shadows.’ They played 13 songs, down from 19 at their recent Brixton Academy gig. I am not sure I would have minded if the sound quality for 12 of the 13 songs had been mixed better.

It isn’t The Lathums fault that I found myself at a similar record store linked gig a week earlier. Whereas they weren’t phoning it in it didn’t feel like they gave it everything. Watching The Lottery Winners in Oxford, it didn’t matter to them that it was a smaller, cheaper gig. They made it fun and they were properly set up for the venue despite speaker issues. They made it feel like we were participating in something special.

Whilst I still think The Lathums are a great band, great songwriters and ‘Matter Does Not Define’ is a quality album I came away having enjoyed Laurie Wright an awful lot more despite not rating him as highly as The Lathums as a songwriter. He gave the performance, held nothing back and he had the right sound mix. Hopefully I will get another opportunity to catch The Lathums as they should be heard in the future.