Three sympathetic English souls have teamed up for a series
of ‘In The Round’ singer-songwriter performances in the UK. Last night they
arrived at a gem of a venue on the English Riviera: the Electric Palace Cinema
in Hastings Old Town, Sussex. Danny Wilson initially got the most attention - by force of personality and sheer volume. For
my money the subtler song-writing and performing charms of Neil Halstead and
Pete Bruntnell had more to offer,
however.
Danny, he of Danny and the Champions of the World and Grand
Drive, is less suited to the unplugged acoustic vibe. After all his ‘Champs’
band is a full-throttle affair. Ironically perhaps, such was his vocal force that
Danny could have been totally unplugged; it would have been more comfortable for all of us if he had. However Neil and Pete (pictured left and centre respectively; see below) kept an amusing
comic routine going as they shared one mic stand between them.
All three also deployed amusing on-stage, between song, banter, both
with the audience and each other. The drollest was Pete, who came across
as a more accessible Peter Cook. Sardonically introducing a song (‘Meet the
Swells’) ‘inspired’ by building development issues from when he lived in
Surbiton, he humorously toyed with the audience’s liberal sensibilities before
launching into a typically passionate, intense, and empathetic performance. Introducing ‘Tin Streaming Song’, Pete began
to muse on the death of mining in Devon, before self-effacingly cutting that
short and launching into his strongest performance of the night, which ended
with a chorus that, for him, was untypically loud and demanding, but no less
appropriate for being so.
Highlights of Neil’s contributions were ‘Tied to You’ , ‘Mighty Engine’ and ‘False Start’. There
was no problem in tackling the latter. Yet, tired - he had driven his fellow
musicians from the previous night’s gig - Neil struggled to remember the words
for a couple of other songs in succession. ‘Elevensies’, he claimed, was used
by US public service broadcasting as an anti-drugs song - ironically, according to his website and to his comments last night, as he is rather fond of chemicals. Another song with which he
struggled was a tale of love forlorn, but he was determined to nail it and,
eventually, after two false starts, he did. The audience though, amused by his and
Pete’s shoe-gazing musical sensibilities and seemingly stoned (or just knackered)
disposition, didn’t care, in part because of the love they felt for these
performers, whether already converted, or, in my case, getting there. These
guys are no slouches either, to which their packed performance schedules,
together and apart, testify.
I wish I could enthuse as equally about Danny George Wilson.
He admitted to an overuse of ‘whoas’ in his lyrical range. He is not alone in
this, it is this era’s favourite vocal tic. Danny uses it with more feeling than
typical of much mind-numblingly moronic pop on which it appears, but generally he
sounded like a man trying too hard. Sometimes his over the top sensibility
worked – breaking, mid-way through one of his own numbers, into ‘Stand by Me’
was bold, inspired, and he got away with it. Other times songs that told tales
of hitching to a gig with his Dad or of a love affair with Henry, a van that had once transported
his band’s kit, were just cloying.
These are three great guys who, despite their musical differences,
gel. They each added nice guitar and sometimes vocal touches to accompany the
other. It was a shame though that they only truly shared singing and guitar
duties on one song, the finale, and the one cover of the night, John Prine’s ‘At
the Speed of the Sound of Loneliness’. This though was a sublime way to end the show.
