Narc. Magazine Online
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Steve Spithray enjoys performances from two legendary songwriters
Billy Bragg is in typically combative mood. Not long after the singer had dashed through Shirley and Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key to help warm up a chilly Stockton Globe, a pink University and College Union hat thrown on stage sparked a rant about nurses, strikes and trans issues. Typically for the singer it was eloquently and passionately delivered, before a rousing There Is Power In A Union and Sexuality, the latter reworked to have a not-so-sly dig at Morrissey.
Originally billed as Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott headline show, Jacqui was missing tonight on medical grounds with Paul even admitting from the stage he was missing her and, perhaps even a tear, before Old Red Eyes Is Back which followed a still sublime version of Harry Nilsson’s Everybody’s Talking. Even the stage set-up (monitors stage left) was an obvious reminder someone was missing, but decades of finely-honed stage craft meant the singer worked the space like a pro; hop, skipping and occasionally jumping through classics like Song For Whoever, Five Get Over Excited with the helping hands of his more than capable backing band each taking a shift on Jacqui’s parts. Rocky versions of I Need A Little Time and Me And The Farmer really lifted the second half of the set, including a crowd pleasing Rotterdam which must have been a tough ask on his own, and by the end of a closing Caravan of Love singalong the tears were the other side of the stage barrier in the crowd.
