The Old Fire Station, Carlisle, Cumbria. Saturday 02-August-2025.
Our ninth time seeing the fabulous Elles Bailey, our third time seeing Blue Nation and our first visit to this venue. Only 20 minutes from home and with a handy car park literally across the street. I don’t think I’ve ever parked so close to a music venue. Mary booked as soon as this gig was announced but it was only when she looked at the tickets on the night she saw that they were numbers 001 and 002. Guess that makes us fans.
We first saw Blue Nation at the festival in Skegness in 2023 and then again Blackpool in 2025. Heard the band, bought the CDs and the t-shirt. They certainly did not disappoint last night. Apart from their great music, we loved the banter between the band and the audience. In particular, the question from Luke "Is Carlisle not in Scotland?" got an immediate and vociferous response.
Mary was wearing her Blue Nation t-shirt and then in the interval changed into her Elles Bailey t-shirt!
We have been following the rise and rise of Elles since seeing her on the Introducing stage at Skegness in 2017. We have all her albums including the most recent vinyl and a “bootleg” CD that that have a tale to tell.
Mary ordered these whilst in Italy and the online form unhelpfully defaulted the country to Italy even though the rest of the address was Penrith. Mary didn’t spot that on either order and no one in the dispatch department thought to query the curious hybrid address so the orders went off to Italy and dropped off the tracking radar.
When Mary posted about it on the Elles Facebook fan page as a "sad but cautionary tale" Elles herself kindly offered to replace them but we declined. The CD turned up a month later but no word on the vinyl. Then a miracle - the vinyl turned six months later! Somebody joked it was the only copy with a suntan.
We thoroughly enjoyed the night, Elles and the band just keep getting better and better. Elles did say she was suffering from the lurgy but still sounded great to us.
It was great to hear some of the older songs as she explained they were supposed to play Carlisle in 2020 (cancelled like everything else at that time) and so were reviving some of the original playlist.
Actual set list from setlist.fm (differs from planned setlist above):
- Enjoy The Ride
- Leave The Light On
- 1972
- Over the Hill (John Martyn cover)
- Silhouette In A Sunset
- Hell or High Water
- Truth Ain't Gonna Save Us
- Love Yourself
- Let It Burn
- The Game
- If This Is Love
- Ballad of a Broken Dream
- Better Days (Catfish cover)
- Turn Off the News
- ++ Encore ++
- Riding Out the Storm
- Sunshine City
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