Having been at least 90 days since I last caught Scouting For Girls, I didn’t think that their show was going to be better than it was in that field in July 21’ – Chagstock was the festival and they were the Friday night headliners. Fast forward 3 months to 25th October and I find myself outside the Corn Exchange in the heart of Exeter, shuffling along in a slow moving queue, waiting to enter the building. It was a cool Monday evening (who invented gigs on a school night? whoever it was should take a good hard think and ask themselves, “are they really worth it?”) As we got near the door, it was clear that their fans didn’t care what night it was, it could have been Christmas Day for all they cared….

Tonight’s schedule was jam packed, two support bands and the main act meant that there would be little downtime between acts, maybe just long enough to recharge your drinks and have a comfort break.

Up first was folk rock multi-instrumentalist BEN MCKELVEY, a passionate and confident singer songwriter who took the bull by the horns and got the audience on his side in literally no time at all. Ben has toured with some incredible bands including Mike and the Mechanics (Mike Rutherford from Genesis), Wet Wet Wet and later, Marti Pellow on his solo tour and of course, Scouting for Girls. His set consisted of some awesome tracks lifted from his back catalogue but what really got the crowd warmed up was a stunning version of Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’ which had the entire room singing along. Ben is going to be heading out on a number of headline dates later in 2022, whether this will be solo venture or accompanied with his backing band ‘The Firebrands’, you’re guaranteed a fabulous night of upbeat songs, great ‘between song’ banter and a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart which will make you glow for days.

Next on stage were an interesting 5 piece band called ALIENS DON’T RING DOORBELLS, an adult pop rock band with a raw edge which appealed to tonight’s sell out crowd. It’s tough to categorise the band at all as each track stood in its own genre, if I was forced with my arm in a half nelson, I think that pop/rock would suffice but with an added twist of angst which gave them a grittier, darker edge. The band are kindred spirits hailing from various corners of the globe including California, Liverpool and Birmingham and they formed after meeting in Costa Blanca where they found that they all shared a mutual love for rock music and started to write and record together. Their set was lively and kept the audience engaged throughout, their latest track ‘Slipping Away’ sounding very tight and I read, had garnered a ton more radio plays from various stations across the UK. With a ton more live shows supporting Scouting for Girls, they can expect to showcase their offerings to a good few more thousand people before getting off the tour bus!

After what seemed like an eternity (30 mins), the lights dipped, up went the roar of the crowd and out of the speakers blasted the theme tune to ‘Knight Rider’ (80’s TV show featuring David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff), the crowd went wild.

The audience were well and truly warmed up to perfection as SCOUTING FOR GIRLS launched into their killer 80 minute set with ‘I Wish it Was 1989” which had the audience singing every word back to them. I don’t know what it is with bands like SFG, if I were asked to name a song by them, I would have said ‘She’s So Lovely’ and maybe ‘Elvis Ain’t Dead’ but I would probably struggle to name anymore, so WHY is it that when I’m at one of their shows, I can sing along to pretty much every track, without hesitation? Maybe I just need to learn the song names and I’ll be there, a 100% bonafide SFG fan!

All of the classics were given a good airing tonight, ‘Heartbeat’, ‘James Bond’ & ‘Posh Girls’ were up there as the band cavorted around the stage like they owned the joint. During ‘Famous’, Roy walked the lip of the stage with a phone attached to a long selfie stick and pointed it into the crowd, what do people do when this sort of thing happens? They do silly things like jump around and look like they’re having fun, on a school night as well, would you believe it!

Roy talked about the pandemic and the resulting lockdown and mentioned that they had such a bad lockdown, they decided it would be a great idea to put out an album of 80’s cover versions including ‘Easy Lover’ by Phil Collins and Phil Bailey. After a few groans from the room, they said that they wouldn’t subject us to that particular track and only chose it so they could use the name ‘Easy Cover’ (see what they did there? They DID however, go on to perform ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ from the album which had the desired effect on the room.

Just before the first set came to a close, Roy said that they had received a request and went on to say that Andy & Tash were getting married in September 22 and Tash would be walking down the aisle to the next track and launched into ‘Home’. Midway through the track, Roy stopped the song and explained that they did a much slower version of the track on a later album and it was THIS version that Tash would be walking down the aisle to and NOT the rather upbeat version which would have seen her jogging down the aisle instead!

They left the stage after ‘Elvis Ain’t Dead’ and after a couple of minutes, returned to rapturous applause to perform a couple more songs. ‘Michaela Strachan’ received a great reception despite Roy saying that it was probably the daftest song that he had ever written (It was all about TV heartthrob Michaela Strachan and the song mentions ‘The Really Wild Show’ and hit Saturday morning kids TV show ‘Wac-a-day’ - “It Ain’t Gonna Happen, for me and the Strachan” – Gold right there folks!

I was thinking about which track they were going to bring the curtain down with and after a second or two, it dawned on me that they had yet to perform their biggest hit to date, as the penny dropped, so did the opening baseline to ‘She’s So Lovely’, the crowd went wild for a second time that night as everyone sang along, danced like nobody was watching and drank like it was a Saturday night, there were no doubt going to be a few fuzzy heads as people woke on Tuesday to realise that it wasn’t Sunday but what the hell, it’s not every day that a band like SFG turn up in Exeter for a show. It may be some time until they return to the Southwest again so if you were at the show tonight, lock in those memories and maybe (just maybe), we might be fortunate to see them at one of the many local music festivals around the county next summer.

Words and Pictures by Steve Muscutt