Travis opened their latest US tour to a sell-out crowd at the Washington DC 9:30 Club last night (September 5) – and the 90-minute set at the 1,200 capacity venue in the US capital was watched by an adoring and excitable crowd.
The band have been heavily promoted by their US record label Epic in recent weeks with Washington-based radio station WHFS 99.1FM playing ‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me?’ up to 10 times a day. Nevertheless, Travis frontman Fran Healy was still pleasantly surprised as he sat back and let the audience recite both chorus and verse.
The set consisted of highlights of the band’s two albums, ‘Good Feeling’ and ‘The Man Who’.
Travis, who head into a Los Angeles studio record their third album after this tour, also sang renditions of The Band’s ‘The Weight’ and now their now legendary cover of Britney Spears’ ‘Baby One More Time’.
Two new songs were aired. ‘Safe’ was described by Healy as being about “a baby being held by its mother”. The other ‘Flowers In The Window’ was about, simply “sex”.
Healy’s between-song banter was animated throughout. Referring to the current US Presidential Elections he scathingly referred to politicians “who do nothing in office”.
The set list was as follows: ‘U16 Girls’ ‘All I Wanna Do Is Rock’ ‘Good Feeling’ ‘Writing To Reach You’ ‘As You Are’ ‘Driftwood’ ‘Last Laugh Of The Laughter’‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me?’ ‘Turn’‘Safe’ ‘Coming Around’ ‘Flowers In The Window’ ‘Slide Show’ ‘Blue Flashing Light’‘Only Molly Knows’ ‘Just The Faces Change’ ‘Baby, One More Time’ ‘The Weight’‘Happy’
The band play Roseland Ballroom, New York tonight (September 6).