It’s been just over two years since the four piece got on stage together, but for one night only they reunited at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire to perform tracks from their hit album Chapman Square.

Lead vocalist Andy Brown, guitarist Joel Peat, bassist Ryan Fletcher and drummer Adam Pitts have been working on solo projects for the last few years (Andy’s releasing solo music, Joel’s been performing and touring with The Shires, Adam’s been filming music videos and Ryan’s running a recording studio Phat Camp) but for a night only – much to the dismay of the fans that couldn’t make it to London – they returned to put on a show as they celebrate six years of their debut album Chapman Square.

Adam initiated the gig by messaging the others having had the realisation that they would be celebrating their 5th anniversary having released Chapman Square. After a bit of number crunching they discovered it was actually six years and the idea for a show dawned on them. Andy said: “Hand on heart I thought we’d sell 300 tickets (for the original o2 Empire gig) and that sold out in 30 seconds. I spoke to my manager to see if we could upgrade the venue, and here we are”.

They’ve come full circle, back when they were just getting started the four piece supported boy band The Wanted and in the packed out hall of Shepard’s Bush one fifth of the band Max George supported Lawson (Max was in a band with Andy when they were growing up). The Mancunian gave a short but sweet four piece set starting with We Own The Night, followed by his only single out currently Barcelona, Leave A Light On (cover of the song by Tom Walker ), and finally crowd favourite and the one that got the most reaction from the audience Glad You Came. It was a shame he didn’t debut a new song to the eager crowd because many Lawson fans were The Wanted fans too, but non the less it was good to see Max back up on stage (even if it was brief).

Just as you would expect from a typical Lawson event everything was slightly later than planned but when they finally took to the stage to rapturous applause the goofy musicians opened with When She Was Mine. Straight away the crowd were singing the lyrics back word for word just as easily as if they had been to a gig a month ago – two years ain’t got nothing on the geese (nickname of the fans).

It was followed swiftly by Gone where Joel’s famous guitar faces made their welcomed appearance, and for good reason as he nailed one of their rockier tracks. Make It Happen and Waterfall came next, closely followed by Taking Over Me and Stolen which has one of the best melodies on the whole record – and it sounded pretty good live too.

They had only ever performed You’ll Never Know live twice before and third time lucky because the slow melody gripped everyone listening in Shepard’s Bush. Andy acoustically took on You Didn’t Tell Me before they came back with vengeance (and by vengeance I mean amazing instrumentals) for Learn To Love Again and Back To Life, the latter having the best instrumentals of the night.

It was shortly followed by Brokenhearted, while the track isn’t on Chapman Square they can easily be forgiven as it’s one of their hit songs.

After a short encore and chants from the audience to come back on stage they opened with toe tapper Juliet and the crowd certainly got their boogie on, enjoying the upbeat number.

Last, but by no means least and with the crowd eager to hear the song that started it off for all of them; Standing In The Dark. With Cheshire Cat grins on their faces they enjoyed the acoustic vocals of hundreds of geese singing back at them. They ended the night with a bang and even though they’ve not played live together for over two years, it’s like they had never gone away.

A stunning and much anticipated gig from start to end they enjoyed every minute and the fans did too. A throwback gig with hopes that maybe in the not so distant future they’ll be new Lawson music on the horizon.

featured image photo by: @emmaxlawson