Tell Me When My Light Turns Green (5/5/13)

I did three nights of Sound City 2013, walking the city, popping into venues, watching bands I'd never seen before. But who needs to read reviews of gigs that happened seven years ago?

Here's a review of a gig that happened seven years ago:

So, where do you begin?

Perhaps you start with the phrase 'quite possibly the best gig ever' and work your way back to explain the claim.

Or perhaps start at the end of the night. I hit the Black E again just before 11. In time to catch the last couple of songs by The Hummingbirds. Quite, quite splendid. A bit country-ish, a bit rockabilly twanging guitars, a bit of skiffle, a large dash of The La's. Tons of energy and a fine encore of The Beatles' Day Tripper. Wayne Rooney's favourite band by all accounts, strange that he should display such good taste, not like a footballer, thought they were supposed to be all Gangsta Rap and Davd Guetta remixes?
I'd missed the majority of the set as Dexys overran (and obviously that's what I'm working back toward) but had intended to be at the Black E for both The Hummingbirds and The Tea Street Band's sets to close the weekend. So I waited for The Tea Street Band. And waited. And waited. The 11.30 start that the programme promised vanished. The midnight start that was claimed by the App on my iPhone expired and I stood. On my own. Not drinking. Watching Twitter not update. 7am start, now gone midnight. There seemed to be an issue with the bass and keyboards. I took the hard call and left. So I still haven't seen the Tea Street Band. Which I'm just a little bit gutted about. Still, the place was rammed; I'm sure that nobody missed me.

But the main part of the night? The main part had been at The Anglican Cathedral again. Had been the main part of the weekend for me, was the reason that I was there at all. I'd left my first stint at the Black E at about half seven after an incredibly powerful and moving interview of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign's Sheila Coleman. Another incredible woman fighting an incredible fight and aware of more that we are still yet to hear, today's revelations in The Independent on the shocking lack of care given to the 96 appear to be just the surface of fresh revelations. You think you've heard everything and then something else surfaces to shock you.

The support for Dexys had been local boy Ian Prowse and his band Amsterdam. Prowse is a major Springsteen fan (he's the first to admit this, he called his daughter Rosalita) and it shines through in his work, a bit of a celtic folk influence, a big band, communion with the audience. I arrived in time to hear him revisit his early 90s days in the band Pele with their one hit 'Raid The Palace' before entering into The Clash's 'London Calling'. Hearing his own 'Does This Train Stop On Merseyside?' - unashamedly, wonderfully sentimental and apparently a late life favourite of John Peel - in these surroundings was a genuine moment.

So. Dexys. Finally, Dexys.

Worryingly sparsely populated at the start of the show, the Cathedral filled but still somehow appeared to fail to match the turn out for the somewhat lacklustre Noah and the Whale. A sin basically but those who stayed away? Oh, the glory you missed.

The current show is a piece of theatre with the bulk of the night taken up by a full reading of the band's first album in 27 years, 'One Day I'm Going To Soar'. The album tells the story of Kevin Rowland's life; his parents' Irish Roots, his insecurity, how fame corrupted him, his tendency to idealise and obsess over women, pursue them, gain them then treat them appallingly. It concentrates on his inability to love and the fact that he feels doomed/blessed to always be alone.

And it's filled with comedy.

When first revealed last year the live event was a straightforward playing of the album. After a year of performing, the songs have stretched out. There is room for the band to play, a large degree of improvisation. The interplay and conversational elements that have always been inherent in both this and the band's earlier works has become more natural still, to the point where the night is as much play as gig.

And tonight the surroundings played their part in the theatre; Kevin's ideal woman - portrayed by the mesmeric Madeleine Hyland, an actress by trade who makes her every second on stage vital to the story being told- made her first appearance at their previous shows as an image on a screen for Kevin to serenade. Here she was suddenly present on a balcony high above the crowd. As entrances go.....

There is no communication between artist and audience until the end of the piece. There shouldn't be, it would break the illusion, ruin the absorption in the tale. The thanks arrive profusely and heartfelt at the conclusion of closing song 'It's O.K John Joe' an admission that being alone may well be all that there is.

And then we're into the 'greatest hits' but it's not really a greatest hits. There's no 'Come On Eileen' which may well have puzzled the casual punters. There is a 'Geno' but it's the Bossa Nova version that appeared on Jools Holland's New Year's Eve show. Other than that it's two glorious album tracks from the classic and classicly neglected 'Dont Stand Me Down' followed by a version of Too Rye Aye's 'Until I Believe In My Soul' which transmutes into their debut's Tell Me When My Light Turns Green via a long used interlude where Kevin confesses the sin of 'burning' to a police uniformed co-vocalist Pete Williams. It's broad comedy. Taken oddly by parts of the audience initially but soon embraced by all in the same manner as long term fans.

And then it's the question. For Dexys fans it's THE question. A final encore.

"Kevin, there's been something on my mind" starts Williams, heading into two minutes of preamble wherein Kevin claims that he has watched his language all night (he's lying, Cathedrals tend not to see this level of swearing) before Pete asks "What was she like?" which is the cue for Dexys true masterpiece - 12 minutes of soulful exploration of Rowland's sheer inability to describe how incredible this one woman was.

The answer becomes obvious in this performance, Madeline Hyland returns to the stage for the first time in an hour. Every single moment of the show has headed toward answering a question that Kevin Rowland first asked nearly 30 years ago.

This. This is what she's like.

There is genuinely no other band like Dexys.