On this day, 7 November 1985, Prefab Sprout played Cardiff University. Support was provided by Hurrah.
The band had just released their classic second studio album Steve McQueen.
The album released to highly positive reviews from critics and was a modest commercial success, reaching number 21 in the United Kingdom. Four singles from the album entered top 100 of the UK Singles Chart, with "When Love Breaks Down" reaching the top 30. Retrospectively, Steve McQueen has received lasting critical acclaim, widely credited as an indie pop benchmark and ranked by many British publications among the greatest albums of all time.
At the end of 1985, Steve McQueen was named the fourth best album of the year by NME,and placed 28th in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll.
The Sunday Times labelled the legacy edition as revealing McAloon's "genius" and described the record as being "buttressed by a phenomenal rhythm section and fairy-dusted with Wendy Smith's breathy harmonies". In Spin, Will Hermes deemed Steve McQueen Dolby's "supreme achievement" as a producer.Pitchfork reviewer Stephen Troussé highlighted Dolby's "profoundly 80s sonic palette", which Troussé said reflected "one of the defining qualities of the record... its pop ambition, its willingness to engage with its times, precisely by not being a sullen singer-songwriter would-be timeless classic."
Setlist
Horsechimes
Moving the River
Cars and Girls
Bonny
Faron Young
Hallelujah
Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone)
Wicked Things
Don't Sing
Goodbye Lucille #1
Tiffany's
When Love Breaks Down
When the Angels
Encore:
Cruel
Faron Young
