Music / Reviews
Review: Doreen Doreen, SWX – ‘A euphoric night of pure pop fun’
I was well prepared, and under orders (from myself) to glam up or shut up for this one. I have more sequins than sense as I twinkle my way from the cracker-littered Christmas Steps pub to join a hyped crowd of DD’s biggest and most excited fans in SWX.
Doreen Doreen have been lighting up the Bristol music scene for over 40 years now, and I can’t think of many better ways to spend the last Saturday before Christmas. Surely this can only go one way?
The party has already well and truly kicked off as I enter to see Bella Collins’ illuminated name shining bright. She plays acoustic Christmas songs with blues vocals and suitably dressed in sequin trousers she is here to kick start the sing-alongs and festive cheer.
is needed now More than ever
The stage is set, the mic stands are entwined in tinsel, the drumkit is draped in Christmas lights, and the LCD backdrop lights up with DOREEN DOREEN in bold pink text. The silver throne awaits as all ten members of the band enter the stage, which is awash with pyrotechnic fireworks, feather boas and smiles.
The crowd welcomes them like the legends they are with an especially loud welcome for band founder Carol Whitworth, They arrive on stage to Van Halens’s Jump mixed into Girls Aloud’s Jump. There’s so much going on stage that it’s hard to know where to look.
It may seem a simple premise to mix two songs of the same name, but to pull it off to the level DD do is another thing. They travel in and out of songs changing tempo and styles effortlessly. The same goes for Since You’ve Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson and Rainbow. They combine a banger with another banger and do it in style.
The band are having a party on stage, there are Christmas songs galore including an ecstatic penny whistle solo for The Pogues Fairytale of New York. There are virtuoso five minute guitar solos as leopard print jumpsuit-clad guitarists jump on band members’ shoulders to parade throughout the crowd who form in circles around them lapping up the glory.
If you can’t appreciate Total Eclipse of the Heart mixing into an Elton John medley then do you really like music at all? Carol is checking emails throughout the gig, pulling some from her bra as she sits on her silver throne and reading them out to fans in the crowd with her usual wit and mischievous sense of humour. I think she mentioned it was her birthday.
I get tangled in sequins and blinded by the sparkling pop genius that is everything Doreen Doreen. My pint is full of confetti and my voice is a little husky as the band breaks for an encore. People carry on singing like the band is still on.
Belle Collins comes back on stage to lead and revel in the band’s version of East 17’s Stay Another Day into Do They Know It’s Christmas? The band are predominantly dressed in star costumes which makes for a hilariously impractical dance routine and a lot of laughter all round.
A euphoric night of pure pop fun finishes suitably with Queen’s We Are the Champions. And they are Christmash-up Champions 2024. Easily the best cover band I’ve ever seen, and the most fun you will have at a gig. Merry Christmas.
All images: Matt Barnes
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