Picture by Karin Albinsson

The Middleton lads just can’t seem to do anything wrong in Manchester’s eyes. After an epic summer, hosting one of the biggest gigs this year at Heaton Park and selling out a twenty-five thousand capacity crowd, Liam Fray and his band opted to end the year on another high with seven nights at the O2 Apollo – all of which sold out in minutes.

Taking to the stage in front of an excitable crowd of three and a half thousand – and yes I was one of them on Wednesday, right down the front with fellow super fan Natasha Tarkington – the Courteeners plunged straight into ‘Are You In Love With A Notion?’ followed by classic favourites ‘Cavorting’ and ‘Acrylic.’

Every Courteeners gig I go to the crowd seems to get wilder and wilder! The fans’ passion for the band is mind blowing with everyone out in force in their ‘Can You Play Guitar?’ and ‘Did You Go To Heaton Park?’ T-shirts.

Liam could not give enough praise to everyone for all their support that evening! Taking to twitter he retweeted a fan who was going to her fiftieth show and said: “Fifty gigs. F**k. Never dreamed people would come back for a second helping after the Roadhouse. God Bless the fans.”

Taken from Liam Fray’s Twitter

They played their latest single, ‘Winter Wonderland,’ which has already become a firm favourite among the fans and also made BBC Radio two’s Record of the Week.

Liam then went solo for a few acoustic tunes, ‘Three Months,’ ‘Smith Disco’ and ‘Bojangles.’

This is the first hometown gig without original bassist Mark Cuppello – the band announced his departure on social media at the end of November:

We’re sad to say that, due to mutual agreement, we’ve parted ways with Mark. We’d like to thank him for all the good times over the years and we wish him all the best in the future. We are a close-knit family here and we will always be so with your continued love and support. Our good friend and long time collaborator Joe Cross will be on bass duties with us for the foreseeable future. Now get down the front and help us make these buildings shake.

Big Love, Courteeners We Stand x 

Ending the night on, ‘Not Nineteen Forever’ and ‘What Took You So Long,’ Liam thanked the crowd and shook hands with the fans. Backstage we bumped into Liam’s sister, Laura, (who owns INK INC in the Northern Quarter) Mother Eileen and Father Ken. Eileen said, “We are watching every gig this week and we are very proud.”

We also caught up with Liam backstage as he posed for pictures with fans and made his way round the room to speak to everyone in his charming manner, making all the VIVA girls melt. Ha ha!

So three gigs down and four more sold-out Manchester gigs to go, what a way to end 2015 for the Courteeners.

We can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next year! They’ve already announced that they will be playing Reading and Leeds festivals plus T In The Park.

www.thecourteeners.com

FULL GALLERY PICTURES BY KARIN ALBINSSON:

Album 1