Music > Live Reviews

Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel

OPEN

21/12/18

It is 45 years since Steve Harley formed the band Cockney Rebel, a fact that he refers to several times during tonight's visit to the Banking Hall in Norwich Open, almost as if it is even more of a surprise to him than it is to his audience. At an age when many of us are thinking of retiring, this does not seem to be an option to Harley. 'True musicians do not have a choice', he muses, 'we just have to keep on writing and performing. It is what we do'.

This time around he is accompanied not just by James Lascelles on keyboards and Barry Wickens on violin and guitar (who, together with Harley, regularly form a trio for the acoustic shows), but also by an additional guitarist, bass player, and by original Cockney Rebel drummer Stuart Elliot to give a punchier sound to some of those big hits from the early to mid seventies.
 
It was a seated show tonight, and not just for the audience. Harley broke his hip in a fall back in February of this year, and is still needing a crutch to get around. He therefore spends the entire set perched atop a back-rested bar stool, whilst his guitar tech brings each instrument out to him. Perhaps it is this that has also prompted him to reflect on the years since he was that twenty-something 'Hobo With A Grin'?
 
The first half of the set begins with the only cover of the evening, the up-tempo and joyful version of George Harrison's 'Here Comes The Sun', followed by the breakthrough single that first brought Cockney Rebel  to public attention back in 1974, 'Judy Teen'. These are the first of many of the big numbers that tonight's audience are desperate to hear, but it is the more recent songs, often written about family and friends, as well as the inevitability of getting older, that seem to be sung with the greatest passion and sincerity. These are the songs that are generally preceded by honest and frank introductions, as Harley shares with us his thoughts on losing his mother several years ago, having a 92 year old father with short-term memory loss ('but a great connection with my three year old grandchild'), and putting his own children through further education – 'You now want to go to law school? So I'll need to go back out on tour again.'

There is a lovely moment when Harley recalls an early Cockney Rebel gig at the UEA and speaks fondly of  Nick Rayns, the much-loved college music promoter who organised gigs at the LCR for over three decades. And we are reminded that December 21stmarks the 30thanniversary of the downing of Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. And how Cockney Rebel's original bass player Paul Jeffries and his wife were en route to their honeymoon on that plane. Later, we are treated to the disclosure that Harley and his wife will be spending their first Christmas away from family in 36 years of marriage, and they have chosen to spend it on the North Norfolk coast. Mind you, we are not told at which hotel.
 
'Mr Raffles (Man It Was Mean)' makes his appearance in the first half, whilst 'Mr Soft' waits until after the interval. 'Tumbling Down' gives Harley a chance to get the audience singing back the extended  refrains of 'oh dear, look what they've done to the blues, blues, blues...', before a spine-tinglingly intense 'Sebastian' brings the evening to a dramatic close.
 
Except that there is one song that everyone is still waiting to hear, and we are not cruel enough to make Harley hobble off  stage in order to come back on and sing it. He explains how he has agreed to take 'the Pfizer shilling' in exchange for this song to be the sound-track to the TV ad campaign for Viagra, and he invites the audience to 'Come Up And See Me (Make Me Smile). Which they do, and the evening ends with most of the audience on their feet and dancing. As he quips, perhaps it should have been 'Mr Soft'.