Music > Live Reviews

10cc

Norwich Theatre Royal

04/03/19

I am halfway up the stairs of the Theatre Royal, looking over a sea of old and grey heads, while vendors hustle ice cream and overpriced programs. There is an expectant buzz about the place, waiting for a band that even I’m too young to have seen back in the day. Graham Gouldman has been trading and touring under the 10cc livery for decades now, with band members that have been with him for longer than the classic line-up, but I’m still wondering, rather snootily, if this counts as a proper gig. Of course we old folk should come out to play, but there is something a little depressing about seeing your own mortality staring back at you. I like a comfy seat as much as the next man, but waiting for a band in a sedentary position feels very odd.
Thankfully, there’s barely enough time for such maudlin thoughts - how has it come to this - before the thankless task of the support slot gets underway. Paul Canning is a lovely, self-deprecating and witty fellow whose onstage banter immediately endears him to the audience. He is also painfully aware that we’ve all come to see someone else, so while he has an excellent voice, there’s an air of defeatism in his set from the outset, as if he’s sorry to be taking up our time.  It’s no reflection on him as a performer – his sound is reminiscent of a young Stephen Miller – but his brief half hour in the spotlight does feel a little like something we are all here to get through rather than sit back and enjoy. I guess that’s the price paid for an interval in which yet more drink can be sold, but I feel sorry for him, despite his evident pleasure in playing to such a large audience.
 
The headlight set is preceded by the first surprise of the night, a really rather brilliant film montage of 10cc in their glory days, by your actual Kevin Godley – original member and pretty much the inventor of the modern music video. It’s the start of a continuing acknowledgement that the band has a history, with Gouldman repeatedly and generously name checking the song writing credits clocked up on an astonishing roster of sophisticated, art-rock classics that somehow sneaked their way into the charts in the age of glam rock. I know reviews are not supposed to be lists, but when the first five songs are Wall Street Shuffle, Art for Art’s Sake, Life is a Minestrone, Good Morning Judge and The Dean I, it warrants a special mention. There is some indulgent noodling along the way, which my back brain memory intuitively objects to, but they are all performed superbly, with new boy Iain Hornal handling most of the heavy vocal lifting, doing a remarkable job of taking on the range of both Lol Crème and Eric Stewart. When the first half-hour contains nothing but top ten hits from a time when people actually bought records, it leaves you wondering what can possibly be left in the tank.
 
The answer is, perhaps inevitably, a poke around in less accessible album tracks, and intriguing though they were, I wonder if it was sensible to serve up such a sizeable chunk of lesser-known numbers from the back catalogue, rather than scatter them throughout. There was a palpable dip in enthusiasm from the crowd when Clockwork Creep segued into Feel the Benefit, though you have to admire the cheek of including Old Wild Men, “over the hill and far away, waiting for miracles, on dead strings, and old drums, playing to pass the time.”
 
Silly Love signalling a return to familiar ground, and that we were on the home stretch, but there was still time to squeeze in what was, for me, a real highlight of the evening. Not because I particularly like, or even really remember, Somewhere in Hollywood, but rather because Kevin Godley came along to sing it. Not in the flesh, you understand, but up there on screen, magically appearing like Banquo’s ghost in a beautifully constructed video, as the band play along. When he waved goodbye at the songs close, and the band waved back, it was a lump in the throat moment, and a tacit acknowledgement that old wounds had long been healed.
 
I’m Not in Love was, of course, brilliant – accompanied by another film from Godley it was also brilliantly staged – but it’s only fair that the current line up finished with a song they actually played on. So it is Dreadlock Holiday that closes a main set packed with cracking tunes, superb musicianship, and more than a spoonful of teary-eyed nostalgia. An encore dutifully followed, with a sparking a cappella version of Donna topped off with Rubber Bullets, which finally got the crowd on their feet. By then I got quite used to this sitting down lark – there is something to be said for comfort and a good view – but it was marvellous to see both the band and the audience defiantly throwing off the shackles of maturity, even if it did result in an unfortunate outbreak of dad dancing.