I can remember the
first time I heard Dignity on the radio way back in 1988. There was nothing
else like it around on the radio. It had a passion and a not so expertly hidden
political theme rarely heard on radio friendly singles back in those days. And I’ve
been a major fan ever since.
I was there at their
Welsh gig at Cardiff Uni in 1988 and I have been to every gig in South Wales
ever since.
Deacon Blue live hold a special place in my heart as it was the first gig I took my wife to in Newport Centre for the Over The Land Over The City Tour - what I call The Red Curtain Tour - in support of When The World Knows Your Name. It's a night I will never forget, just to see the look on her face as she experienced the joy of live music for the first time - and what a show to start with. Unfortunately she has developed Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and her condition is now that she can't attend gigs any more but she still remembers that first show - even though she saw many more following that day,
They returned to the
newly named Utilita Arena Cardiff, previously The Motorpoint Arena and still
known to locals as Cardiff International Arena or the CIA. It’s a testament to
the band’s loyal fanbase all these years later that they can still fill arenas.
A long way from Cardiff Uni or Newport Centre a couple of years later. The
Cardiff audience came out in full, filled the hall and turned it into a night
of celebration for one of the best bands the UK has ever produced.
With only a couple of
changes over the years – on Bass we now have Lewis Gordon and following
original guitarist Graeme Kelling’s death from cancer in 2004, Gregor Philp on
Guitar, joining original members Dougie Vipond on Drums, James Prime on
Keyboards, Lorraine McIntosh on Vocals & Guitar and main man and chief
songwriter Ricky Ross on Vocals & Piano.
The tour this year is
called the All The Old 45’s Tour referring to an evening based on the singles
releases by the band since conception. Which includes a career spanning retrospective
13 disc boxset called You Can Have It All as well as the Double Album of All
The Old 45s. It made for a great night of singles heaven. And what a night it was!!
In a decision of
total genius, the band decided to support themselves in the form of an 7 song acoustic
set which really showed the beauty of the chosen songs as they were stripped back to their
core. The upright double bass on the stage was a good sign of what was to come. The problem would be, what songs to play.
The band took to the
stage and all stood around the microphone and delivered an acapella version of a
part of Queen Of The New Year. A spine tingling opening.
With all of the band seated across the stage, Ricky dedicated the next song to all of the Sharons in the audience, so we knew what was coming next as they launched in S.H.A.R.O.N. from Ooh Las Vegas.
S.H.A.R.O.N.
Looking totally at ease in this setting, we could have been sitting in the band's living room enjoying a jam or watching them in an alternate reality Grand Ol Opry
A stunning version of Chocolate Girl came next with the audience singing along already. Alan still doesn't understand her, all these years later!
From an old song to a relatively new song - the band turned to 2016 album Believers for the gentle Delivery Man with it's almost military beat by Dougie and backing vocals from the always beautiful Lorraine.
Delivery Man
And talking of Lorraine - she takes lead vocals in the next song - Cover From The Sky from 1991's Fellow Hoodlums album. It's a lovely Country tinged number and Lorraine took her chance to shine as she channelled her inner Dolly Parton & Emmylou Harris. She got one of the biggest cheers of the night!!
Cover From The Sky
Another Newish song came next with In Our Room from the City Of Love album.
In Our Room
Another huge cheer from the crowd went up as they recognised the intro from the next song - the sublime and probably Deacon Blue's best cover, I'll Never Fall In Love Again - complete with a cheering crowd every time Lorraine started singing. God, they LOVE this woman.
I'll Never Fall In Love Again
The final some of this acoustic session was the title track from the bands 2001 comeback album Homesick. Bloody awful cover - but a fine album!! With the applause ringing in their ears the band left the stage and promised an up-tempo Part 2. And that's exactly what we got!!
PART 2 WAS A REAL EPIC PERFORMANCE
With nearly 40 years of singles to choose from, it must have been quite some task just to pick the setlists for the tour.
On their return to the stage Ricky immediately ordered the crowd to their feet and they stood singing and dancing for the rest of the show.
Yes Cardiff, you did us proud!!
They opened part 2 with The Hipsters and the wild abandon started.
The Hipsters
One of the band's lesser known songs comes next in the shape of Only Tender Love from 1993's Whatever You Say, Say Nothing album. This gave Gregor and Lewis a chance to show their musical chops.
There are certain songs in the Deacon Blue repertoire that just ignite the audience and by god the fireworks flew for the next song as the crowd sang their hearts out and danced as if it was 1989 again.
The mighty Wages Day.
Wages Day
The band proved they still have the energy to move around the stage with aplomb and get the audience to that high that you just knew was going to come.
The first of the two Bethlehem songs came next as the band and the crowd sang that mighty chorus that is Bethlehem Begins from 2014's A New House album.
Bethlehem Begins
Back in 1991 I remember the third Deacon Blue album, Fellow Hoodlums signalling a change in direction with a few slower songs, it just felt less anthemic but it contains some of the bands best songs and we were treated to two of them next as the band slowed the pace with Your Swaying Arms.
Your Swaying Arms
After the short slow down in pace the opening guitar arpeggios of the next song had the crowd bouncing from note one with the arrival of Twist & Shout.
Twist & Shout
As I stated earlier there are certain Deacon Blue songs that really light the touch paper for the fans and next up we had another of those monumental tracks.
The first album, Raintown, was an instant classic and produced several huge songs - and next up in the evening was Loaded. The fans went wild, as expected! I've included the epic live version to try and give you a taste of the response the song gets when played live. and yes, the lights shone on the Cardiff crowd singing their hearts out.
Loaded
Rick takes to the piano several times during the show and next up was a special version of the second Bethlehem song, Bethlehem's Gate, especially for one of Ricky's Welsh Twitter followers - no it wasn't me!
City Of Love comes next followed by another 'Touch Paper' - possibly Deacon Blue's most popular song - from Raintown again - the anthem that is Real Gone Kid. If anyone in the audience had any inhibitions left they were certainly cast aside for this track. The crowd almost took the Arena roof off they were singing so loud and hard!! With it's band build up to the ending and the volume raised to 11 it was the highlight of the night once again.
Real Gone Kid
How the Hell do you follow that - well they weren't letting the crowd off the hook in the singing stakes and they did it with a more recent 'Touch Paper' song - The Believers. A truly brilliant double header.
The Believers
An exhausted crowd needed some respite and it came in the form of those twinkling piano notes from James Prime as the band slipped into a beautiful version of Raintown, I have to say here that that whoever designed the stage show did a brilliant job with the lighting and the screen, right now showing rain and lightning but throughout the evening showing old band photos and Graeme & Ewen too.
The Show comes to an end with another recentish up-tempo killer - That's What We Can Do. Just showing the guys can still write a classic DB anthem if they really want to.
That's What we Can Do
The band leave the stage but you know there's going to be an encore. And Deacon Blue encores are always a bit special.
It opened with a new song, the plaintive - Peace Will Come.
And after this the audience is ready once again for an anthem - and by God they got one as the band morph the song into the final two 'Touch Paper' songs. First comes the classic Dignity.
Dignity
OK - one more anthem as Ricky asks the crowd 'can this white man sing the blues?'
It was of course, Fergus Sings The Blues.
Fergus Sings The Blues
The crowd was now all sung out, emotionally shattered and absolutely euphoric. But the band had one more surprise - the unsung hero darling of American West Coast Rock Warren Zevon's song Keep Me In Your Heart
Forgive me for including a fan shot video of this but it captures the spirit of the song as MOST of the band get to sing some lines. Even Dougie.
Well, an Epic Blog for an Epic Show. Deacon Blue are the band I've seen the most and they were as good tonight as they were back when I first saw them. This Tour was in conjunction with an equally epic 13 disc career retrospective called You Can Have It All. It's really a career to be proud of and with Xmas coming you could do a lot worse than asking Santa for a copy - or if Santa is a bit skint this year, the double album All The Old 45s should cover all of the essential bases.
The voices of McIntosh and Ross are entirely undimmed by the passage of time, or indeed the two-hour-plus set tonight. There’s a four song encore, with a couple of the band’s most well-known songs, a roof-raising run through ‘Dignity’ of course, and ‘Fergus Sings The Blues’ sandwiched between a couple of slower songs: the affecting ballad ‘Peace Will Come’ and the eventual closer, a cover of Warren Zevon’s equally poignant ‘Keep Me In Your Heart’, with Ross joking that “This is the moment when the party’s really finished, but there’s one old Scottish guy sitting in the kitchen boring the hell out of you!” The band take turns singing lines from the song and it’s a beautifully hopeful way to send the very appreciative Birmingham crowd home.
Karnataka returned to the Chapel as part of a Tour to promote their latest album, Requiem For A Dream.
Carrying on from last year's selection of dates the band have had a change in line up once more.
Main Man Ian Jones remains as always on Bass and now he is joined by lead vocalist Sertari and lead guitarist Luke Machin who both appear on the new album.
This time however on Keyboards we have Rob Wilsher and on Drums/Percussion it's Jack Summerfield.
The band played a two part set with heavy emphasis on the new album. Indeed, throughout the night they played every track from the album. The theme of the album is very much about climate change and most of the songs carry this message.
The band kick off with the lead track from the new album, All Around The World.
The previous incarnation of the band featured the fabulous Hayley Griffiths on Vocals, she was very much the English Rose and rocked out with the Band with that fabulous soaring operatic voice.
Sertari is almost the complete opposite, her look is very much Eastern and her movements are more sensuously Eastern as is the music on the new album. New people bring new ideas and colours to the music and it shows in this performance. She has grown so much into her role as front woman, even from last years debut she seems much more confident which was great to see.
Next up was another very strong song from Requiem, The Night's Dance.
The Night's Dance
The album that the band are performing here tonight is possibly the strongest they've ever produced. And this is the band that brought us the Award winning album Secrets Of Angels, so that's saying something.
You can tell that they know that they've produced a winner as confidence oozed from every musician on the stage.
Talking of Secrets Of Angels - next song up was the only SOA track of the night - The Road To Cairo.
Sertari tackled the song with grace and aplomb. It's amazing how every new Karnataka vocalist manages to make the older songs their own. I suspect the hand of Ian Jones here working with the vocalist, guiding them through the song.
The Road To Cairo
For the next two songs we head back to 2000 and the album, The Storm.
We are treated to Dreamer before Ian, Luke & Sertari take to their stools for an acoustic version of The Journey. I love hearing these acoustic, stripped back versions of the songs as I always assume it must sound as they were written.
For the final track of Part 1 we are back with the Requiem album and the tuneful Forgiven.
The new album is such a tuneful album and even with it's dramatic religious Latin closing section, it still holds it's sense of melody.
As if by magic - it's Part 2 and the band return with a bang with the epic Say Goodbye Tomorrow from the Requiem album. And it's another song full of melody and drama. If singles were a thing these days, it would certainly be a contender in whatever chart would be relevant these days.
SAY GOODBYE TOMORROW
The band stick with requiem for the rest of the set and we are straight into Sacrifice, another song that showcases Sertari's vocal dexterity. It's a sultry mix with another killer chorus and a chance for Luke to make some pinpoint fluid licks. Luke has been fabulous all night as indeed have Rob and Jack who have selflessly laid histrionics aside and have chosen to just serve the music, Jack by giving it the drama and solidity and Rob by giving the music it's multitude of colours and flavours.
And in charge of it all we have The Guvnor - Ian Jones who literally holds it all together and provides the visual foil for Sertari's sensuous movements.
My favourite song on Requiem comes next. As Feels Like Home was my favourite on Secrets Of Angels due to it's tuneful, almost film soundtrack quality, so Don't Forget My Name plays the same role on Requiem. It's even in the same place, just before the Epic title track. You could definitely hear it on some top movie as the credits roll. and Luke plays a blinding solo. It really comes alive live, so to speak.
Don't Forget My Name
Which leads us to the final song of the set, and of Requiem, the epic 25 minute title track, Requiem To A Dream. I'm not going to go into it here, I'll save that for my albums Of 2023 Blog. Suffice to say it is up there with all those other great Karnataka epics such as Gathering Light and Secrets Of Angels.
It gives plenty of room for ALL of the band to shine and get their moment in the sun.
'WE KEEP DANCING IN THE RAIN'
Requiem For A Dream
But........ There's always room for an encore!!
The band return to the stage and unveil a beautiful new version of fan favourite Forsaken, from the Gathering Light album, 13 years old this year, Bathed in Purple and finally Green light, the band played it beautifully I can guarantee I wasn't the only old man with a tear in his eye at the end of the show. And anyone who knows the song will know it has an epic instrumental ending with all hands on deck and one monumental guitar solo which Luke made his own tonight to a massive round of applause.
and then, it was over. 2 Hours of music just flew by. The band must have been delighted with the response they got to the new material. Sertari really has settled in SO well and brought yet another dimension to the Karnataka music, I just hope she stays around for another tour where she gets her chance to sing some of the Karnataka favourites like Gathering Light, Secrets of Angels and Delicate Flame Of Desire,
