The Beautiful South

One of T in the Park's early highlights was the appearance of unyielding pop veterans The Beautiful South. The band lead the audience through a collection of their greatest hits while lead singer and ex-Housemartins crooner Paul Heaton broke into the all too familiar ‘drunk dad at your cousins wedding’ freestyle dance.

The sordid lyrics and catchy melody of ‘Perfect 10’ matched the combined harmonies of Heaton and the equally good Jacqueline Abbot to such a degree of excellence that you couldn’t help but jig around.

The foot tapping, hip swaying and gentle nodding from the crowd didn’t stop as The Beautiful South proved why approximately one in seven households in the UK own their greatest hits album ‘Carry on up the charts’.

‘Don’t marry her’ gave Abbot the opportunity to bring her vocals to the forefront and it wasn’t difficult to see how much she was enjoying herself, an emotion clearly felt by all who graced any of the ten stages at T in the park this year.

The Beautiful South, whose name was born from Heaton’s dislike of Southerners and his attempt to get macho men to say the word ‘Beautiful’ have such an extensive back catalogue that they could have played any number of hits from any of their ten albums.

They certainly set the mood for what was yet to come on the main stage.

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