Richard Hawley by Nick and two Littlemill

August 13, 2022

Particular Vacation Weekend Version!!!

Within the midst of this fourth heatwave right here in Alsace, I am very joyful to report that after an eight-year lengthy hiatus and relatively a number of complains on the event of our twentieth Anniversary (however the place’s the music!?) Nick is again with a beautiful and wittier-than-ever live performance evaluate straight from Glasgow, whereas Angus over there in Fife managed to style two wee Littlemills. Aside from that, this little web site will keep on trip for a number of extra days whereas we’re pondering of a brand new, but non permanent setup for our tastings to return. Keep tuned! – Serge

Live performance Overview by Nick Morgan

Richard Hawley, Sumer Nights

on the Kelvingrove Bandstand

Glasgow audiences are infamous.  Barrowlands, could also be, as Richard Hawley assured us, ‘the very best gig within the nation’, however the folks of the Pricey Inexperienced Place will be fickle people and exhausting to please, significantly when confronted with English performers.  The well-known Glasgow Empire, sadly demolished in 1963 and changed by an unpleasant and now unloved and undesirable workplace block, was often known as the graveyard for English performers, significantly comedians.  On a Saturday night time shipyard employees, refreshed by a number of hauf and haufs  would bathe below-par acts with handfuls of rivets (that was in The Glasgow Herald Serge, so it should be true). There are valuable few shipyard employees in tonight’s  excited crowd on the beautiful Kelvingrove Bandstand, though given the demographic is sort of attainable that a number of retired ones have made it up from the attractive Partick boozers of Dumbarton Street.  That may account for this in depth prostate pushed que for the urinals.



That is Sumer Nights on the Kelvingrove Bandstand, though the sturdy outerwear a lot in proof confirms that England’s heatwave has but to cross the border.  Fourteen gigs that includes a few of Whiskyfun’s most interesting such because the Waterboys and Edwyn Collins and Serge’s specific favorite ‘fookin’ Richard Hawley.  It is a rolled-over 2020 gig due to the you-know-what.  In 2019 Hawley had launched his eighth studio album, Additional, which, stated a press launch, had optimism at its coronary heart (dangerous timing there Richard).  In contrast to his seven others this one is just not named after part of hometown Sheffield.  Your reviewer was on the very completed launch gig at Dalston’s EartH, a former cinema and billiard corridor with (identical to the Kelvingrove Bandstand) remarkably uncomfortable bench seating.  However no matter bodily discomfort the efficiency was so sometimes good {that a} journey to Glasgow for the 2020 gig within the park was being deliberate earlier than all that optimism all of a sudden shrank away. 

Nonetheless, when the possibility of a spare ticket appeared I used to be off dodging and diving prepare strikes, cancelled flights and melting tarmac in addition to you-know-what to get to the DGP. 

Had the shipyard employees been in I can not assist however suppose they may have given ‘particular visitor’ assist act Studio Electrophonique (aka James Leesley) a number of baggage of rivets and extra for his hassle.  However on a cold early night this viewers warmed each to his wrist-slittingly melodic melancholia, and the boldness past his years he displayed in dealing with the group (‘don’t fret, you will be dancing by the tip’).  It should be a Sheffield form of factor; Studio Electrophonique, by the way in which, is a reference to a reasonably exceptional piece of Sheffield’s music historical past, with out which no Jarvis Cocker, no Pulp and so on.  I relatively loved Leesley’s tunes, however to be sincere I used to be distracted by the guitar tech on the right-hand facet of the stage who was busy tuning and sharpening Hawley’s entourage of guitars, who had come alongside for the night time.  This was, we later realized, Gordon the Guitar tech from Glasgow, ‘conceived below the stage of the Barrowlands’, and ‘the very best in his worth bracket’.  He actually had a job on his fingers.

‘We hate the fookin’ Tories’ chanted the viewers enthusiastically, till hushed by Hawley.  ‘And this’, he stated, ‘is what we’ll get once we eliminate them’ because the band launched into ‘Tonight the streets are ours’.   It’s I believe, nonetheless certainly one of Hawley’s finest,  a joyous celebration of working class tradition.  Cue one other explosion, this time of rebellious dancing rapture from oldies and children alike.  Simply to my left one previous fella (maybe as soon as a rivet wielding shipyard employee) was dancing, beer in a single hand, strolling stick waving within the air from the opposite.  A simple button to press I suppose, however from that time onwards this Glaswegian viewers nestled softly like putty in Hawley’s fingers.

As guitar adopted guitar so music adopted music, together with ‘Coles Nook’, ‘Do not stare on the solar’, ‘Open up your door’, a really menacing ‘Down within the woods’ and to complete a crunching ‘Is there a capsule’.  Returning to the stage for an encore Hawley introduced ‘we have simply had a chat, we’re all going to maneuver right here, fook it’ – cue one other viewers explosion earlier than ‘There is a’ storm a’ coming’, which ends appropriately threateningly with Hawley, again to viewers, thrashing his Gibson 3355 inside an inch of its life, earlier than reverting to the beautiful Gretsch for an explosive ‘Coronary heart of oak’ to complete.  Effectively nearly end.  They did the false ending factor, with Hawley yelling to the viewers within the longueur, ‘Lets rock and roll? Lets fookin’ rock and roll? Lets fookin’ rock and roll?’

And so they did.  – Nick Morgan