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The beautiful, if slightly faded, Leeds City Varieties' concert hall is the perfect place for a proper show. And, on a Friday night in spring, lush, old-style pop singer (and Pulp touring guitarist) Richard Hawley is the perfect person to play it.
While Hawley has had a slow-burning solo career, I'd stand before anyone and argue that the Sheffield crooner has made some of the best albums of his generation. Records like Late Night Final, Lowedges, and Coles Corner bristle with experience and come soaked in impossible longing. Their mood draws the listener inside, leaving him open-mouthed and bursting with heated blood.
So, you could say I've been looking forward to this one. The show is a birthday treat for a friend, and after a meal I can't really afford we sway through Leeds to the gig -- that warm, wine-full glow lending the evening a special feeling.
The venue's Victorian music-hall charisma knocks the shit out of the student union refectories and converted sports halls that comprise the usual venues on the circuit. It's a bit strange that the bar only serves cans of Carling, or whatever it is, but as Hawley will note later in the evening, we should be grateful that we're here at all. Grateful that the council, in their wisdom, haven't decided to knock the old building down and replace it with a car park or, shudder, a Weatherspoons pub.
Richard Hawley
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Having missed the support, we're seated just in time for the band to wander onto the stage. From the outset, there's no doubting that Hawley is an enthralling performer. Equal parts romantic crooner and Working Men's Club comedian, he fills the gaps between songs with expletive-strewn gags -- seemingly picked up from watching dodgy turns down at the local. At one point he points to the perilously high balcony and remarks, "It wa' hundred years ago today since that fucker last fell down." It's true that some of the jokes might be older than Joe Longthorne's between-song banter (with apologies to US readers), but Hawley's timing is spot-on, and his dry-as-hell northern drawl makes these little asides genuinely funny.
Oh, and then there's the music. The same intoxicating mood found on the records filters down from the stage, filling the air with breathtaking sound. Hawley's tender baritone is deeper and richer in person, and he doesn't feel the need to over-sing, emote, or bullshit with warbling. From the opening swell of "Coles Corner," it's clear that the space that invites you into his records is not lost live. I don't hear anything sepia-tinted or retro. For all their '50s references, these songs evoke memories, not of a bygone, picture-postcard age, but of last week and this morning.
Dedicated to the late Grant McLennan of the Go-Betweens, "You Don't Miss Your Water (Till Your River Runs Dry)," is a devastating tear-jerker that sounds even more cracked live. Similarly, "The Ocean" -- introduced with the gag, "This is a romantic song about me wife. it won't be that romantic next time I see her. . .two minutes. . .tops" -- is a driving, epic lament that lashes through the City Varieties.
The band shows an instinctive musical skill in its gorgeous lap-steel touches and sighing, reverb-laden solos. The last time I saw a band this free and hot was the fire-and-brimstone-spewing Bad Seeds. Indeed, Hawley's breathless "Baby You're My Light" is a song that Nick Cave would kill to have written. Here it sounds like the most perfect love letter in the world -- not a wasted or unnecessary second in the song. Hawley sings, "And as life goes on you know you don't have to hate all you find"; and it might be about his mam and dad, but he's right: it could be for anyone.
Hawley is moving and funny. There's something about him that reminds me of the wisecracking hotel singers I used to watch as a kid in Blackpool. He says "cheers" at the end of the night with a familiarity that suggests he'd be good company over a pint. But there's something else to it all. Something about the songs, the way they seep into your heart so deeply that you can't imagine a time when you didn't know them. It's something I haven't noticed at any other gig I've been to this year. There's a chance it's the wine speaking, but tonight Richard Hawley is fucking boss.
— 14 June 2006
