Tripwire Reviews Richard Hawley Live In Cardiff

Tripwire’s music staff reviews Richard Hawley live in Cardiff…

RICHARD HAWLEY

Tramshed, Cardiff

Richard Hawley kicked off his latest British tour with a night of deadpan humour, kitchen-sink romanticism and achingly beautiful baritone vocals, invoking some parallel pop universe where Nat King Cole was a white steelworker’s son from South Yorkshire. This is a winning formula, and the 57-year-old singer-songwriter is well on his way to National Treasure status, but there was still something a little muted about this show. Rounding off a triumphant year, which included a Top Five album and a West End run for his award-winning stage musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge, Hawley’s overall presentation in Cardiff felt oddly prosaic for such richly poetic music. His five-man band largely remained inert while the staging was threadbare, the only visual prop a now-traditional Welcome To Sheffield road sign.

This set was dominated by tracks from Hawley’s latest album, the gloriously titled In This City They Call You Love, another bittersweet love letter to his native Sheffield. She Brings the Sunlight was the slightly sluggish curtain-raiser, a rumbling psychedelic churn that ballooned into a triple-guitar roar. But much of the newer material harked back to a pre-Beatles era of skiffle and folk clubs. With their spare acoustic arrangements and close-harmony blended vocals, the Hank Williams-infused Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow and recent single Prism Jeans had a jaunty, melodious, light-entertainment polish that owed more to Cliff Richard than Keith Richards, and were all the better for it.

Hawley’s dry wit has always been key to his charm, though it had a slightly tetchy edge in Cardiff. At one point he complained “you must be the quietest audience ever”, and it sounded like a rebuke with no punchline. He earned predictable cheers when he revealed his wife Helen was born and raised in Wales, then equally inevitable boos for adding she was smart enough to escape to Sheffield. In fairness, Hawley did finally win the crowd over with a heartfelt mini-speech linking Welsh industrial heritage to his own extended family of steelworkers and miners.

This evening achieved full emotional lift-off when Hawley switched gear from Yorkshire Elvis to widescreen, grainy-voiced crooner mode. The sumptuous ballad Open Up Your Door, with its lush synthetic big-band orchestration and luminescent guitar solo, was sublime. Likewise the wistful acoustic heart-twanger Heavy Rain and the roaringly romantic Tonight the Streets are Ours were grand showcases for the singer’s brushed-velvet, nicotine-stained vocal skills. Hawley is an enormously likeable performer, but a few more of these operatic spine-tinglers would have given this slightly shapeless, occasionally pedestrian show the dramatic sparkle it deserved.