WHILE they’re essentially road testing new songs from their album on a whistle-stop tour of intimate venues around the UK, this show was delivered with the benefit of years of experience.

Stereophonics’ career has spanned more that 15 years, clocking up an impressive five number one UK albums.

The Welsh band, who have headlined some of the biggest venues around the world, performed to a capacity crowd at the Cliffs Pavillion on Tuesday night.

Lead vocalist Kelly Jones was in fine voice and founding member, Wesley Schultz, proved the mid-Glamorgan group were up to the challenge as the five-piece fully owned the stage.

With impressive versions of some of their biggest singles, including Have a Nice Day and Just Looking, taken from their Performance and Cocktails and Just Enough Education to Perform albums, the audience were stamping their feet, waving their arms in the air and clapping along with sheer delight.

No one’s Perfect was a slow song that let Kelly throw out his fantastic vocal tone for one last time and sums up the story of the album, heartbreak and love – the title of the song tells you everything about everyday life, at the end of it all, no one’s perfect.

Dakota was a real thumper of a track which closed the set. The Stereophonics were supported by rising star Josh Well and his band.

The new album, Graffiti on the Train, is their first on their own label Stylus records.

MARK BOARDMAN