Richard Hawley: O2 Apollo, Manchester – Live Review

Richard Hawley | Thea Gilmore
O2 Apollo, Manchester
12th June 2024

Richard Hawley, in this game Man and Boy, is touring his wonderful new album with a gang of rock-solid musical nomads in tow and a quarter of a century of classic songs to play. MK Bennett dances awkwardly.

Richard is a man apart, setting himself high standards in a lineage of high watermark icons, less homage and more an attempt to touch the hem of Rock and Roll’s indigenous garments, to reach back and pull forward the magic that produced this world-changing music with a little added modern spice. He is as always, resplendent, some men were just born to wear clothes well, and with a new album (the spectacularly named In This City They Call You Love) and a recently released retrospective to charm us with, 25 years gone and with absolutely nothing to prove to anybody, the curtain metaphorically falls on a night of tremolo mashing reverb soaked wonder. He will revisit Graceland via Meadowhall, a working-class journey taken less and less each year, the narrowing, disappearing parameters of a wider culture reduced to the corners of thrift stores and fetishistic club nights. However, like all great music, it still has its champions, moral leaders, and backbone.

Firstly the solo return of the wonderful Thea Gilmore, still fine of voice, it’s now aged like good whisky, the songs sound lived in but new, as she fills the hall with wit, warmth and her big personality.. Starting with Friendly Little Heart Attack, she has lost none of the low-key feminist rage that she has always enjoyed, and it is needed now more than ever, as the country continues to shit in its one good hand and clap, and the wonderfully acerbic Razor Valentine rolls in and demands you relax. She Speaks In Colours, a collaborative effort filled with her pain and the pain of others, that bone-deep loss that is unique to parents of children who have gone. Her version of Bad Moon Rising, wryly described as a “well-known folk song from the 70s” is so good that Hollywood came calling. Stripped back and bleached white, giving the imminent Armageddon vibe a whole different meaning. Finishing with Nice Normal Woman, which may not be literal and does that musician thing of looping and sampling live, it is excellent, and we can only hope it is a new direction or at least a reminder to tour with a full band very soon. Thea Gilmore has been missed.

Richard Hawley is the reluctant superstar, the man who didn’t want to become the man who could and walks out onstage in that particular way that Northern men do, part humility, part amusement and holds the room in the palm of his hand for nearly two hours, electricity falling around us and in us. First up the swirling space rock of She Brings The Sunlight, not the last time the band’s subtle brilliance is obvious, right down to the note-perfect backing vocals. Three guitarists including Richard himself, it’s an impressive wall of sound when required. Two For His Heels is a countrified and modernised Shakin’ All Over, but it’s Telstar and Urge Overkill and Uma Thurman too.

Prism In Jeans is the sound of innocence, of the Everly Brothers and hollow body guitars, of a well-recorded Buddy Holly and yet more incredible backing vocals, more interplay between the instruments, bobbing and weaving like a young Henry Cooper. The sublime Open Up Your Door, string-drenched with romance sidles along, confident in its pleading.

Standing At The Skys Edge is a dramatic John Ford plot driven by the music’s dynamics, so cowboy it should wear horseshoes, a classic slow-burning ballad of bad choices. A mercurial piece that sounded stunning in this old high-ceiling theatre, where the acoustics echo with old ghosts. Deep Space is also haunted, by the ghosts of Hendrix and Neil Young, a nod and a wink to Roger McGuinn’s experimental Coltranesque Mixolydian solos, Richard treating his guitar like a Red-haired stepchild. Just Like The Rain is an upbeat charmer, with picked acoustics and an effortless melody. Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow is lovely and sounds exactly like it should.

Tonight The Streets Are Ours is preceded by Richards’s own three-word party political broadcast, succinct but covering all bases, while the song is Born to Run via The Leadmill, The Crucible, and The Steel Plants. Alone is Egyptian Reggae, the musicians having reached a point of perfection and stayed there.

The heartache that is Coles Corner is breathtaking before any words are sung, the city as hope and belief and ultimately disappointment. On this one, big pianos and movie strings, the disillusionment of romance like Grandma’s heroes used to make. Leave Your Body Behind You is otherworldly it’s so good. The layers of guitar, the realization of the sheer noise that Richard and Cohort are capable of making, Crazy Horse style as the high notes bleed into the atmosphere, strangled and mutated, Garage band wig-outs and psychedelic music fills the air. It was the sound you always wanted The Grateful Dead to make.

In the ‘60s, when the Wrecking Crew were the studio session band of choice, the first guitar was always Glen Campbell, a hugely talented player and a decent singer, who had a few hits with some notable writers and never looked back. Richard Hawley is considered a velvet-throated crooner, yet maybe the greatest guitarist of his generation. Food for Thought, but hopefully Leave Your Body Behind You is duly recognized as an outtake from the White Album, dripped in honey. Heavy Rain is easy listening, a northern love story where the weather isn’t a metaphor, it’s a fact of your lived experience, as involved in your life as public transport or Match Of The Day. Don’t Stare At The Sun is where the ridiculous chemistry between band members shows itself again, the timing folds in on itself, whispered keyboards, tiny imperceptible and incremental musical movements in perfect balance. They launch into space at the end, and it’s hardly noticed.

Is There A Pill, a great melancholic bruiser with plans toward the epic, more wonderful hearts on sleeves, while Heart Of Oak closes the set proper with more stunning musicianship from, well, everyone. There is a very ecstatic, almost religious devoutness to the sound made by the crowd here, bordering on hysteria, so it is best for all involved that they come back out for four more songs. People is such a beautiful thing, The People In This City Call You Love, it’s so slight and quiet you fear it will break, it’s a breath on a cold morning, a church emptied by thieves.

Time is…is a great roaring rock and blues masterpiece with astounding talent Clive Mellor brought on to play the harmonica and we party like it’s 1999. I’m Looking For Somebody To Find Me is a lovely exercise in skiffle with added strings. A reminder that it is Rock and roll we are doing here. The Ocean, the Last Classic, the Last Waltz Tonight is another wonder of interaction and invention with bittersweet lyrics. A beautifully judged vocal, and they could have played all night, all week.

The impression is of The Who playing Summertime Blues, with a lot more finesse, The Cramps, technically proficient and channelling Roy Orbison. The mostly older crowd were left buoyed by what they had seen, a rollercoaster without a harness.

Welcome To Sheffield.

Please note: Use of these images in any form without permission is illegal. If you wish to contact the photographer please email: mel@mudkissphotography.co.uk

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You can find Richard Hawley on Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram and his website.

All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here plus his Twitter and Instagram

All photos by Melanie Smith – Louder Than War | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Portfolio