Music > Live Reviews

Tom Jones

Newmarket Racecourse

24/07/21

With hit records spanning an incredible seven decades – from 'It's Not Unusual' in 1965 to a number one album in 2021 – Sir Tom Jones is a living legend, and surely one of the biggest names in popular music. Last night, at Newmarket Racecourse, 'Jones The Voice' absolutely wowed the capacity crowd with a 90 minute live set that followed immediately after a full card of seven flat races at the historic July Course.

The show started with 'Mama Told Me Not To Come', the Randy Newman song that Jones sang with Kelly Jones and Stereophonics on his number one album 'Reload' back in 1999. It was a wry choice, acknowledging the easing of coronavirus social distancing rules, and the postponement of his appearance from July of last year because of the lockdown. “Last time I performed on stage I was 79”, he quipped, “Now I'm 81. What happened there? Did we lose a year?”

Well, Sir Tom, what happened is that you released 'Surrounded By Time', a critically acclaimed album of covers that went to the top of the charts on its release this April, breaking the record for  oldest male artist to have a number-one UK album. The Newmarket setlist featured no less than seven songs from the album. However, unlike at the Latitude performances in 2010 to launch his devotional gospel album, 'Praise & Blame', the Newmarket audience's expectations tonight were  met, and exceeded, with a string of the hits to mark his 51 year pop career. We had everything from 'The Green Green Grass of Home'  to 'What's New Pussycat?' We sang along to 'Delilah' and 'It's Not Unusual'. We got down and grooved to 'Sex Bomb' and 'Kiss'. But, most of all, we watched and listened in awe and wonderment as Sir Tom and his band held court for over an hour and a half.

There was a heartending version of the Lonnie Donagan song 'I'll Never Fall In Love Again', which went viral after Sir Tom sang it with Donegan's son Peter on television show 'The Voice'.

There was a stirring cover of Leonard Cohen's 'Tower of Song' lifted from 2012's 'Spirit In The Room'; 'If Only I Knew' from 1994's 'The Lead and How to Swing It'; and 'You Can Leave Your Hat On', the Randy Newman song made famous from the soundtrack to 'The Full Monty'. The encore opened with an incredibly moving version of 'I'm Growing Old', a Bobby Cole song featured on 'Surrounded By Time', which had tears welling up inside me even though Sir Tom had no time for sentiment - “I've not grown old”, he quipped to to the audience, “I am growing old. I will be around for some time to come.” We hope so, Sir Tom. We really do.

Photos: David Auckland