Tunbridge Wells, Assembly Halls, Friday 5th November 2010, by Derek Brigden

Sadly only one of the 3 wise men was able to make it to Tunbridge Wells for the first of the Acoustic sets.  Although lonely on arrival, where there’s a Harley fan there’s a friend and I was thankfully welcomed into the pre show company of Steve and Rebecca, thanks guys!

As I sat waiting for the show to begin I questioned whether I would be disappointed having been fortunate enough to see Steve and the ‘full’ band on tour both in the UK and in Europe this year, and I’m always amazed that everytime I see him it just seems to get better and better.  I had no real reason to have any doubts though, we all know that Steve is a master at re writing his songs in different ways to keep them fresh and to suit all occasions and line ups.  The lights in the theatre dimmed and 3 silhouettes took to the stage. The show began with the very well chosen first song ‘Audience with a Man’ which started gently and gradually built in momentum.  Fun to hear the names of Bush and Blair bought into the lyrics to keep the song up to date.  We were then immediately taken back to the early 70’s with renditions of ‘My Only Vice’ and ‘Sling it’, the violin on those early albums being perfectly replicated by Barry Wickens while James Lascelles worked the old Moog synthesiser to bring the frantic crecendo at the end of the song to a really tight finish.

A slightly up tempo ‘The Best Years of our Lives’ was followed by a gentle relaxed version of ‘Red is a Mean Mean Colour’ a personal favourite of mine since I have some good memeories of life around the ‘Timeless Flight’ era.  It was no surprise to find ‘Dino’ on the set list as it works particularly well in this acoustic line up.  ‘Love  Compared With You’ though was a surprise for me, although a nice surprise as I love this song.  Yes Steve, I was one of those you mentioned who was once in a band and somewhere I still have our own (not very good) recording of this song.  I particularly liked the gentle ending to this song and was hoping it would go on and on and on.

‘The Last Time I Saw You’  gave James a chance to play his Cheesegrater, as it’s lovingly known to some, the Dulcimer, if you want to be politically correct.  This unique sound gave an almost Japanese feel to the song which together with the violin complimented the song beautifully.   Again Barry’s talent in re creating those violin sounds of the 70’s bought Judy Teen to life and was the first chance for the audience to join in with the line ‘She Made Us Happy’.  And then it was on to the new album with ‘No Bleeding Hearts’. Steve’s emphasis on the lyrics, combined with the effects on the violin were amazing and as the song built, the combination of the piano, moog, violin and guitar were mesmerising.  The gentle ballad of ‘All in a Life’s Work’ flowed effortlessly as did ‘True Love’, the only cover version from the new album and Steve, some of us do actually like this song!

Thankfully for me we returned once again to the Timeless Flight album and to one of my favourites ‘All Men Are Hungry’.  While Steve sang those wonderful words and strummed the chords keeping the gentle rythm of the tune going Barry and James added a number guitar and piano incidentals which worked so well and made the song feel as if it was almost floating around the theatre.

(Seriously, I wasn’t smoking anything and only had one drink!) 

After a somewhat unexpected interval which even Steve was unaware of, the guys returned and Steve sang ‘This Old Man’.  The clever words of this song and their meaning are best played in a stripped down and simple format drawing the listener in and I get the feeling that  Steve really does think of his Dad every times he sings this song.  And then we reached ‘The Lighthouse’.  I was really knocked out by the full band version of this at a recent concert  when Barry received a long and very justified ovation for his fantastic violin playing and I really did doubt that he could improve on that.  I was wrong again!  The overall sound was fabulous and I just cannot find any words good enough to say how brilliant that violin solo was.  Barry you raised the bar yet again.  I am just sad that I am unable to replay this live version of the song over and over again.  Please record it before the tour ends? 

And after that spell binding trip it was back to another old classic with the never ageing ‘Mr. Soft’  complete with all the accents and some excellent keyboard playing from the master of Ivories, Mr. James Lascells.

We were then treated to to the ‘original’ version of ‘Make Me Smile, Come Up And See Me’   While it was a very different, and rather laid back version of the song we all know and love we felt priveledged to have been given an insight into the birth of such a classic song.

We then had our next chance to join in with the singing at the end of ‘Mr. Raffles’ and although our audience numbers did not fill this theatre we were all definately ...Oo Oo Having a party!

After the gentle ballad of Journey’s End we then immediately recognised the opening notes of ‘Sebastian’ and again I wondered how on earth 3 people could cover such a big production song.  I guess this is where the amazing talent of Steve, Barry and James comes through as between them they managed to hit all of our expectations with some exquisit piano playing from James bringing the song to it’s final crescendo.  Finally we had our third chance to participate in the chorus of Tumbling Down and as I looked around there were smiles on all of the faces of the 45+ going on 18 year old audience.  Steve looked ready to carry on and I think he would have done however we had hit the 11pm curfew and so that was that.  Another great concert, over 20 great songs and another memory to put in the bank!

On occassions I shut my eyes and couldn’t believe that 3 musicians could make such a full sound.  Is it the quality of the songs and their mysterious lyrics, the skill of the minstrel himself in being able to rewrite and adapt his songs to suit different musical line ups or the exceptional musical talents of Steve, Barry and James.   Personally I think it’s a combination of all of these things and possibly more.  All I know is that I had another very enjoyable evening in the company of Steve Harley and can’t wait for the next time.