RICHARD HAWLEY + STUDIO ELECTROPHONIQUE – DE LA WARR PAVILION, BEXHILL-ON-SEA 3.9.21
Born on 17th January 1967, Richard Hawley is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. After his first band, Treebound Story, broke up, he became a member of Britpop band Longpigs in the 1990’s. Hawley’s inimitable style is difficult to pigeonhole, ranging as it does from ballads, to rock, country and pop and everything in between; beautifully crafted songwriting and distinctive vocals being the key ingredients. His varied list of collaborators give some more insight to his music style: Lisa Marie Presley, Arctic Monkeys, Manic Street Preachers, Elbow, Duane Eddy, and Paul Weller.
Richard Hawley’s last venture into Brighton came on 18th October 2019, when he appeared at The Dome – Read our review of that concert HERE. This time around, there is no Brighton concert date and so we ventured eastwards to Bexhill in order to watch his performance in the internationally famed Grade I listed De La Warr Pavilion. This is a special venue that Richard Hawley clearly enjoys performing in as he has played here twice before – 3rd December 2016 (which I attended and the acoustics were fabulous!) and 9th October 2009.
Tonight’s performance was rescheduled from 30th July 2021 and so we didn’t really have long to wait, unlike some other concerts.
I honestly view the De La Warr Pavilion as part of our Sussex heritage and a building that needs to be treasured and maintained for future generations and so we quite often have a jaunt over here to see what’s going on.
In these testing Covid times, it is advisable to endeavour to get out and about as opposed to sticking indoors and letting your mind race away with things. Many people are still almost living like hermits as they are afraid of going out and facing the consequences. It seems that many thousands are suffering with their mental health as a result of everything going on and are becoming stressed and isolated and then, for instance, when they try and get an appointment with the doctors for themselves or a booking for their pet at the vets and they cannot be seen immediately, then they can become abusive and violent towards the staff. I am hearing of many such cases these days from those that have taken the severe flack and it is very upsetting. We are all in this ‘together’ and we all need to work our way through this ‘together’. So those punters that have responsibly attended tonight’s concert, I salute you! It’s the perfect way to release those feel good endorphins in your body and ease the stress levels. Richard Hawley’s music does have the ‘feel good factor’ as we shall see and to top that, he’s a witty fellow too.
At 9:09pm the house lights go down and the intro tape plays ‘Love Me’ by Dimas Garza and Hawley and his chums take to the expansive stage, having performed a headline set last weekend at the Red Rooster Festival in the grounds of Euston Hall in Suffolk. For these appearances, the five-piece band are promoting Hawley’s 8th studio album ‘Further’, which is his first album not to be named after areas around his birthplace of Sheffield.
You can’t help noticing the banks of shiny guitars and bass guitars that are on display this evening, all of which have been expertly tuned by the road crew including Hawley’s ‘lifelong friend’ Steve or was it Martin, Hawley’s pretended to forget, dry Yorkshire wit you see! They have many pedal boards on the floor in front of them to reflect this.
The De La Warr lighting was terrific with three rows of banks of powerful spots and there were rows of crisp sounding speakers. Clearly there has been a big investment here!
The layout of the musicians is Hawley who is displaying his down-to-earth northern cool and sporting his trademark manicured quiff and glasses is obviously centre front and on his stage left (our right) is Colin Elliot (bass guitars/drum), on the opposite flank (our left) is Shez Sheridan (guitars). Behind Shez is John Trier (Roland RD-2000 Digital Piano), as well as popping in and out is Clive Mellor (harmonica/tambourine/maracas) and back right (stage left) is Dean Beresford (drums). This is a collection of very talented middle-aged musicians as we shall see.
They open with a couple of rocky numbers from his latest ‘Further’ album, ‘Off My Mind‘ and ‘Alone‘. Hawley chatted to the audience from time to time between tracks and in particular made a point of thanking us twice for being so brave and coming out to watch their performance.
For their fourth number ‘Standing At The Sky’s Edge’, Clive Mellor made his first entry of the night and showed everyone how a harmonica should be played and half way through the number bassist Elliot moved a little further back and played a drum. This track went down very well and got the loudest roar from the crowd so far.
After a discussion about dog poop bags, where Hawley reached into his back pocket to pull out a plectrum and got a little black bag instead – the plectrums were lined up on the mic in front of him – they were off again with a terrific rendition of the skiffle-esque ‘I’m Looking For Someone To Find Me’ from 2007 ‘Lady’s Bridge’ album. Shez Sheridan has switched to 12 string guitar for this number – very impressive!
We were soon onto my personal highlights of the set ‘Tonight The Streets Are Ours’ (from 2007 ‘Lady’s Bridge’ album) and ‘Coles Corner’ (found on 2005 ‘Coles Corner’ album). Both of these tunes made their hairs on my arms stand on end, as I rested them on the crowd barrier at the very front. Oh, didn’t I mention, we are standing tonight, unlike his seated previous appearance a few years back. I prefer standing to be honest and the crowd was certainly packed in, although on the balcony above there were still a few seats available, so tonight hadn’t quite sold out, but it was a very impressive turnout.
The Rickenbacker and 12 strings were out again, as well as harmonica for the following numbers. Soon it was the turn of everyone’s favourite Häagen-Daz tv advert as the opening strings of ‘Open Up Your Door’ rang out and my arm hairs stood to attention again and my brain thought of distant Bobby Goldsboro melodies.
‘Down In The Woods’ (from 2012 ‘Standing At The Sky’s Edge’ album) was up next and the wall of guitars sounded like The Doors and I reckon this would have been a great number to end to set to, but we were delivered a trio of other numbers, which included ‘There’s A Storm Comin’’ (from 2010 ‘False Lights From The Land EP’), where the keyboards sounded like raindrops hitting your bedroom window late at night.
It was all over at 10:52pm and the punters went out into the Bexhill air with their ears slightly ringing and their hearts full of joy.
Let’s hope Hawley and his chums sleep well as they have a long journey ahead of them as they are tomorrow entertaining the crowds at another Grade I listed building. They will be playing at Yorkshire’s arguably most important secular building, Piece Hall in Halifax, along with John Grant, Stephen Fretwell and Studio Electronique.
Richard Hawley setlist:
‘Off My Mind’ (found on 2019 ‘Further’ album)
‘Alone’ (found on 2019 ‘Further’ album)
‘Further’ (found on 2019 ‘Further’ album)
‘Standing At The Sky’s Edge’ (found on 2012 ‘Standing At The Sky’s Edge’ album)
‘I’m Looking For Someone To Find Me’ (found on 2007 ‘Lady’s Bridge’ album)
‘Emilina Says’ (found on 2019 ‘Further’ album)
‘Tonight The Streets Are Ours’ (found on 2007 ‘Lady’s Bridge’ album)
‘Coles Corner’ (found on 2005 ‘Coles Corner’ album)
‘Galley Girl’ (found on 2019 ‘Further’ album)
‘Don’t Stare At The Sun’ (found on 2012 ‘Standing At The Sky’s Edge’ album)
‘Time Is On Your Side’ (found on 2019 ‘Further’ album)
‘Open Up Your Door’ (found on 2009 ‘Truelove’s Gutter’ album)
‘Down In The Woods’ (found on 2012 ‘Standing At The Sky’s Edge’ album)
‘Is There A Pill?’ (found on 2019 ‘Further’ album)
(encore)
‘There’s A Storm Comin’’ (found on 2010 ‘False Lights From The Land EP’)
‘Heart Of Oak’ (found on 2015 ‘Hollow Meadows’ album)
Richard Hawley’s band are:
Colin Elliot (bass guitars)
Dean Beresford (drums)
Shez Sheridan (guitars)
John Trier (keyboards)
Clive Mellor (harmonica/tambourine/maracas)
More info on Richard Hawley HERE.
Support this evening came from James Leesley who goes under the banner of Studio Electrophonique. Late at night he enters his home studio in Sheffield to write and record songs purely for the love of making words fit melodies and melodies fit chords, capturing them on his tape machine. These songs developed into the six track ‘Buxton Palace Hotel’ extended EP/mini-album released on 10″ vinyl on 20th September 2019 on Violette Records, which quaintly categorises the music as sitting on ‘The Palace Side’ and ‘The Tap Room Side’, instead of the A and B sides. Find out more HERE.
Leesley describes his vision for Studio Electrophonique “is to capture ideas as purely and as untouched as is possible. Using a simple tape machine facilitated my ideas. The songs were in 4-track form in my head, so it felt right just recording it as it was in my mind, in one or two takes.”
“Studio Electrophonique allows me a more introspective, vulnerable lyrical approach. The words don’t have to introduce themselves to anyone before being in the song, so they could just be themselves. This has been the most natural and satisfying way of writing.”
James strolled onto the stage at 8:01pm and seated himself at his keyboard. Moments earlier having inserted a cassette tape into the player beside him, which contained the drum machine backing track for the first and last of his songs of his set.
When he started singing on his opener, he reminded me of William Doyle, who was formerly known as East India Youth. James then switched to guitar and performed ‘Jayne’ from his ‘Buxton Palace Hotel’ release, which reminded me of ‘Femme Fatale’ by The Velvet Underground. He remained on guitar for five of his seven song set, which included ‘Happier Things’, ‘I Don’t Think I Love You Anymore’, ‘David And Jayne’, and ‘Can’t You Just Want Me’ (which again sounded a little bit like Lou Reed). He returned to his keyboard for the final number ‘Buxton Palace Hotel’.
The songs he creates are simple and plaintive, beautiful and redolent, evoking feelings of calm reflection and so saying many of those things in song by night that we struggle to say in conversation by the light of day. His love of all things analogue and his penchant for crafting a charmingly sad song combine to create something altogether very wonderful. Cinematic, melodic, warm – efficient in arrangement yet intricate in detail.
This was a pleasant start of a wonderful evening out in an 86 year old iconic building. A concert within this ‘modern’ contemporary arts building is always an event and tonight was no exception. Since October 2005 the venue has been pulling the punters in and long may it continue!
