Talk about lastminute.com! I had offered this gig to Mrs. P many months ago when it was first touted but she decided against it. However, encouraged by an enthusiastic review on Peter Smith’s excellent VintageRock’s Weblog she changed her mind – the night before the gig! Fortunately I grabbed the last two seats together in Tier 1 and we were in! 🙂
Paul Canning
Paul Canning (acoustic guitar, vocals)
The setlist was very similar to that of last year’s tour when supporting Gouldman’s Heart Full of Songs. Out went ‘Falling Easy’ to be replaced by new song ‘Yesterday’s News’ but other than the sequence of the songs, it was almost identical.
And the patter was pretty much identical too, even down to the jokes. Not that any of this would be obvious to a first time punter; I mention it only because I know it to be the case.
As for the music, well, as before, it passed the time swiftly enough. Canning is an easy listen and his brief stint has enough humour to maintain the interest of a gathering clearly only there for the headliners.
Setlist: Bandwagon; Loud Room; Kid; Dying Light; Cry A Little; Yesterday’s News; 100 Years
10cc
‘The ULTIMATE Ultimate Greatest Hits Tour’
Graham Gouldman (guitars, vocals) / Rick Fenn (lead guitar, bass, vocals) / Iain Hornal (vocals, percussion, guitar, keyboards) / Keith Hayman (keyboards, guitars, bass, vocals) / Paul Burgess (drums, percussion)
I saw this exact line-up (minus drummer Burgess) in Lincoln almost a year ago to the day, but back then they were masquerading as Graham Gouldman & Heart Full of Songs when even the support had been the same. On that occasion Gouldman had performed a few 10cc songs but this was a great chance to see the full repertoire.
The RCH’s publicity machine tells us that “50 years on from their debut album, art pop and soft rock legends 10cc are heading on tour. The band continue to be one of our most loved and remain a critics favourite – “Note perfect!” proclaimed the Daily Telegraph; the Arts Desk confirming that “10cc’s songbook, full of fun and love and rage, remains blessedly the same”. Having sold over 15 million albums in the UK alone, 10cc have eleven Top 10 hits to their name, including three No 1 singles – Rubber Bullets, Dreadlock Holiday and the ubiquitous I’m Not In Love – along with Donna (No 2), Art For Art’s Sake and Good Morning Judge (both reaching 5), The Things We Do For Love and I’m Mandy Fly Me (6), and The Wall Street Shuffle (10).”
10cc were originally four highly talented musicians who composed short(ish) songs with great hooks and melodies, occasionally straying into prog-land (‘Une Nuit à Paris’, ‘Somewhere in Hollywood’, ‘Don’t Hang Up’, ‘Feel the Benefit’ etc.) and were also wonderful wordsmiths whose lyrics were always witty and clever. Gouldman is, of course, the only original standing member (how good would it be to see all of the four originals back together? 😢) although both Burgess and Fenn have been with the band since Godley and Creme walked away back in the late 1970s. Burgess had been touring with the band from 1973 as Kevin Godley stepped from behind the drum-kit on stage. I also have an LP by Rick Fenn, a collaboration with Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason with contributions by Dave Gilmour, and very good it is too.
Their almost two-hour set began with a backdrop projected video of the song ‘GG/06: Son of Man’, a song created in 2018 by Kevin Godley especially for Gouldman’s touring band. (You can watch the video at the end of this blog entry). A new one to me, this chronicles the story of the band, and wouldn’t be the last video contribution from the founder member on the night And then the band appeared…
As promised by the tour title, what followed was a blast through their greatest hits. Performed with enthusiasm and no little skill, the audience was captivated from start to finish, joining in with rhythmic clapping when appropriate and, by the end, up on their feet and dancing around. The band has so many great songs in their back-catalogue, I don’t think that they missed out any of their most popular ones. My personal highlight was the very proggy ‘Somewhere in Hollywood’ and I was delighted to see that this was accompanied by another specially produced Godley video featuring the man himself on lead vocals. Brilliant! That song came, of course, from the ‘Sheet Music’ album; it’s my favourite and it must be generally acknowledged to be one of their very best because the band played five songs from it.
And when the encore rolled around we were surprised by the band performing ‘Donna’ a capella, a feat which caused much amusement and, needless to say, they pulled it off superbly. And then it was into the show closer, the classic ‘Rubber Bullets’, their first ever hit although, sadly, never a real favourite of mine. After performing it with gusto (and, in my humble opinion, some unnecessary ‘soloing’) the band took their final bows to tumultuous applause, the audience completely satisfied by what we had witnessed.
The musicianship was top-notch throughout, with several members of the band doubling up on many different instruments. Multi-instrumentalist, percussionist and vocalist Hornal is no Eric Stewart, but he managed to make the songs his own and injected humour into the performance. Burgess’ one vocal involvement – the final note of ‘Donna’ – was the source of much merriment, while Hayman – ostensibly on keyboards – also took up guitars and sang, with Fenn tinkling the electric ivories at one stage.
And a brief word here about the lighting, which was modest. The projection screen was used not only for the aforementioned ‘GG/06 Son of Man‘ and ‘Somewhere in Hollywood’, but also on one more occasion – the new song ‘Floating in Heaven’ co-written by Gouldman and Brian May about the James Webb Space Telescope launched just over a year ago and which is now sending back photographs of stars billions of miles away. I presume that the photos used in the video were these? Good song too.
As a footnote, I do have one little memory relating to ‘The Original Soundtrack’ which I recall buying somewhere around mid to late 1975 from what used to be Rowntrees department store (now part of the Brunswick Shopping Centre) at the top end of Westborough, Scarborough. This was a treat for myself as a reward for a traumatic after school visit to the dentist on York Place where I flaked out after an aborted extraction caused me much pain. I would love to be able to say that when I came around in a small side room I responded like Chevy Chase who, after fainting in the action-comedy film ‘Fletch’, asks the nurse…
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the Records Room,” came the reply.
“Oh. Do you have The Beatles’ ‘White Album’? Never mind, just bring me a cup of hot fat. And the head of Alfredo Garcia.”
…but I didn’t. 😂😂
Setlist: GG/06: Son of Man (intro video); The Second Sitting for the Last Supper; Art for Art’s Sake; Life Is a Minestrone; Good Morning Judge; The Dean and I; Old Wild Men; Clockwork Creep; Feel the Benefit; The Wall Street Shuffle; Floating in Heaven; The Things We Do for Love; Say the Word; Silly Love; Somewhere in Hollywood; I’m Mandy Fly Me; I’m Not in Love; Dreadlock Holiday; Encore: Donna; Rubber Bullets
And here’s the ‘GG/06: Son of Man’ video.
Gigs'n'Stuff 