By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum

Welly’s National Service Tour Part 1 (the South) travels this month from Gloucester to Northampton, with stops including Exeter, Reading and, of course, a homecoming kind of gig in Southampton.

• Read on for reasons including how the spring album release’s name is one of the tracks they played this night

Hot on the heels of their rambunctious sets on the BBC Introducing Stage at Reading Festival, and their now annual spot at Victorious Festival, Portsmouth, the young whippersnappers are, in Welly’s own words, “gelling together for the first time”.

This is more than apparent in their delivery – slicker, smoother, louder and … well they just get better and better. Along with news of an album launch in the Spring, we want to know when they’ll be continuing Part Two of the tour: up North!

There’s less time for chatter nowadays on stage, but of course, Welly banters with family and friends at The Joiners. He informs us that you only play twice at the Joiners: once on the way up, and then again on the way down, and that it was so nice to be playing here again. His self-deprecation belies their newer, more mature tracks.

Still continuing in the style of The Kinks, The Jam and Blur with their playful, suburban observations, the newer songs seem more meaty and less frivolous, if that even applies to their older, Live in a Village Hall-era tunes.

It’s Not Like This in France, with its Common People-esque build up, along with Cul de Sac, now feel like we’ve been hearing them for the last two years.

There’s still the element of crowd participation: the starting of the lawnmower in a pantomime farcical-but-fun way to launch into Deere John. Each number could be an encore, such is the energy and voracity with which they perform.

As at Victorious this year, Flowers makes a rare appearance, for his mum (amidst fond audience chants of “There’s only one Mummy Welly”). The now-obligatory crowd surf (although not resulting in a broken hand like last month) fits perfectly in their set.

One thing I’m quite happy with is that I advised them to elongate Me and Your Mates as we all just want to dance for that bit longer to it. Well, did they take that on board? The long off-stage encore build-up would seem to prove me right. It’s never enough time to dance to; that one really has gone down as a proper banger.

Welly himself, as well as all of the band, is very generous with his time with his fans and spends a little time updating us on how things are going.

He teases us that the spring album release’s name is one of the tracks they played that night. I’m not sure I want to have to reverse my way out of whichever cul de sac I predict, so we’ll just have to – sadly – wait and see.

• Pictures via Facebook courtesy Welly and A Humdrum Mum. Tickets
• Read more from Carron at her blog A Humdrum Mum
• Have you seen any of these shows? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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