Joe Jackson's set contained mainly well known songs from his extensive repertoire, these were played solo on the piano. I had forgotten what a fine pianist he was and what brilliant lyrics he has written over the years. I must say I really enjoyed the set and I shall definitely be dusting of my CD's to play over the coming weeks.
The last time I saw Todd at the Colston Hall was on the "Another Live Tour" which is going back more years than I care to remember, I have seen Todd on numerous tours since then but never quite as stripped down as on this tour.
If you saw Todd last year on the "Liars" tour you will know that he is still in fine voice and boy was his voice good last night. You may be surprised after reading some of the other reviews from this tour that he was in really good humour, he handled a lunatic woman who kept shouting out in between songs very well as it must have been really annoying.
Unfortunately virtually as he burst into the first song, "Love of the common man", his guitar string broke and he had to swap guitars and start again, but he even joked about that!
It was clear from the start that this set was going to be something special, he moved into Cliche, the voice was so clear so perfect it was just amazing, we even had a breathtaking "Song of the Viking" at the piano, other songs included "Hello Its Me", "Tiny Demons" one of my favorite songs but I have never seen him play live was "Hawking" again the voice was superb. "Beloved Infidel", "Black and White", one of my unfavourite songs but worked well on the night "Bang on the ukulele daily" and "Lysistrita".
Ethel then took to the stage again as backing for Todd and he performed a just breathtaking version of "Pretending To Care" and this was followed by a real treat "Stood Up" from the "Liars" album which again was just brilliant with Ethel backing. The encore was While My Guitar Gently Weeps which should have been named while my violin gently weeps as Todd did not play the solo at the end despite now being plugged into an electric guitar. But it was still great to hear it played a different way.
What a great night.
Cheers
Phil Hunt
Gloucester, England
