Mark Morriss led The Bluetones through 14 top-ten singles and three top-ten albums across a 15-year run that defined a significant corner of British indie music in the 1990s. Solo now, he plays Strings Bar and Venue in Newport on 21 May in an intimate format that the Bluetones' arena and festival bookings never offered. The venue on Bowling Green Lane seats a few hundred, which puts you close enough to the performance to hear what made the songwriting work.
Strings Bar has become Newport's most consistent live music venue for this tier of act: bands and artists who made records that people still know and who are worth seeing in a room rather than at a distance. Morriss's solo set draws from The Bluetones catalogue and his own material, and the acoustic or stripped-back format he uses live gives the songs a directness that the original productions partially obscured. "Slight Return" and "Cut Some Rug" are in there.
Booking recommended; check Strings Bar for tickets. More music events on the Isle of Wight across the spring season.