Sheryl Crow | Dea Matrona
Piece Hall, Halifax, Yorkshire
13th June 2024
Sheryl Crow has had huge hits and sold millions of records and on a rainy night in West Yorkshire, she brought some Californian sun to her faithful fans.
To many music fans Sheryl Crow being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was probably a shock, but her albums have sold 50 million copies….and she’s picked up 11 Grammys along the way. So no surprise that her brand of intelligent pop rock, with a country tinge, can pull a decent crowd into this historic old cloth trading hall in West Yorkshire. Crow will never appeal to the hipster crowd, but she knows what her audience wants by simply playing all her many hits.
First up were Belfast duo Dea Matrona who met at school and learnt their trade busking in their home city. The pair did nothing particularly original, however, they did it with a touch of heart in their songs and made the most of their big chance as some of the audience grooved along to the catchy Red Button. They’re not a band that will be a support act for much longer.
The Piece Hall is a lovely enclosed venue with great acoustics, still, the rain had been coming down hard off the Pennies, so thankfully Sheryl Crow clad in rock chick sparkly top and leather flares brought with her a welcome dose of California optimism. Backed by her very competent regular live band she launched into the pounding Real Gone, setting the tone for her traditional but effective approach to songwriting, even blowing on a harmonica at one point.
Noting ‘this place is crazy beautiful’ she took it down a notch for the swaying rhythms of A Change Would Do You Good with its Hammond organ stabs and the damp audience began to warm up. Run, Baby, Run was a fantastic power ballad before Crow introduced her biggest hit All I Wanna Do early in the set. It’s a cleverly constructed tune bringing some much needed lightness under a very dark sky, and an enthusiastic singalong proved that it was still a big fan favourite, despite the first of many cheesy seventies guitar solos. Strapping on a bass, Crow delivered a funky My Favourite Mistake, which remains one of the great revenge songs, and may or may not be about a very famous British musician.
Crow noted that ‘about 12 people brought’ her Be Myself album, but she still did the title track warning against the perils of social media, which Crow said her kids only gained access to when they were teenagers. Crow has been around a long time, so was a bit of a name-dropper mentioning that Lionel Ritchie had told her just do the hits live, but to her credit, she included the title track of her new album Evolution, and with a different timbre to her voice was as good as most of the songs in the set.
Crow told the mainly middle-aged crowd that she’s been open about her mental health struggles, which was why she asked Peter Gabriel for permission to cover Digging In The Dirt. Her sprawling version brought a new and fascinating female perspective to what is already a great song about taking responsibility for your own demons. Sadly she then offered an utterly pointless cover of First Cut Is The Deepest, marred by what in a very strong field was the worst guitar solo of the night. Why on earth cover that tired old song when you have so much decent material of your own?
Sanity was restored as Crow asked the crowd if they liked rock and roll and country before she let rip vocally on the bittersweet If It Makes You Happy, which was composed as a direct riposte to sexist male musicians who questioned how much she had contributed to her early success. Crow spent a couple of years as a backing singer to pop weirdo Michael Jackson, and you don’t get that gig if you can’t sing, and her powerful vocals bounced around all four walls.
The punchy Soak Up The Sun inspired four very drunk thirty-somethings to have an impromptu and energetic dance around a nearby rubbish bin, which managed to be both touching and amusing. A lot of Crow’s work uses the road as a metaphor for freedom and trying to find your true self, so it was apt when she finished with yet another hit single, Everyday Is A Winding Road.
Sheryl Crow knows how to craft a song and work a crowd, so despite the misery that the unseasonably wet British weather had thrown at them her fans were sent home with just a little California sun in their hearts.
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Sheryl Crow can be found at her website.
Words by Paul Clarke, you can see his author profile here.
All photos by Frank Ralph, you can find Frank at his website here:
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