It’s Friday night and The Waterboys are in town in support of their recently-released 16th studio album Life, Death and Dennis Hopper. Joining them on stage for a few songs later on will be Cardiff duo Paul Zervas and Kathryn Pepper, who have been making music as Zervas and Pepper for 15 years; but first they get their own 30 minutes on the stage of Birmingham’s lovely Symphony Hall.
The famous acoustics here are perfect for the duo’s stripped-back sound, Pepper’s voice especially carrying across the venue beautifully to an extremely attentive audience who are silent in all the right places. A note made to give Joni Mitchell as a comparison seems like a bit of a cheat by the time Pepper introduces ‘This Flight Tonight’, a Mitchell cover that the pair had performed at a tribute concert previously. There’s a lot of Laurel Canyon in their sound, the set also containing a cover of The Byrds’ ‘Wasn’t Born To Follow’ (this time with Zervas on lead vocals), but their own material is excellent too, with Cigar Store Indian’ standing out. Zervas and Pepper make no attempt to hide their influences, quite the reverse as they are happy to name-check their heroes throughout, but they have plenty of their own personality and charm and no doubt end the night with a plethora of new fans.
Released just last month, it will be interesting to see how The Waterboys’ expansive and ambitious Dennis Hopper-themed concept album will fare in a live setting. However, it’s a familiar favourite that kicks off their show tonight, with the band enjoying a very strong start with an inspired ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ – often used by the group as an encore, it has a celebratory feel which is followed up by a mighty ‘Glastonbury Song’, the guitar courtesy of main man Mike Scott a little crunchier than on its recorded counterpart. There have been a lot of ‘Waterboys’ over the years (over 80 members have appeared live with the band!), and this current line-up is pretty great – the twin keyboard salvo of ‘Brother’ Paul Brown and James Hallawell powering the band along.
Scott is quite fond of a good story too, and a heartwarming monologue about his five-decade pursuit of a Dan Armstrong Plexiglass guitar (he’s playing one and will even use a second one later!) the next song is another hit in the shape of ‘How Long Will I Love You’, albeit charting via a cover by Ellie Goulding, becoming a Top 3 hit on the back of appearing on the soundtrack to the 2013 film About Time. As if this euphoric start wasn’t enough, three old favourites follow quickly; a powerful ‘Be My Enemy’ and re-worked ‘This Is The Sea’ sandwiching one of the evening’s oldest Waterboys’ songs, the title track of their second record A Pagan Place.
A very quick stage transformation then takes place to introduce the ‘Dennis Hopper’ section of the show, with the band leaving for a couple of minutes while some visuals such as an Andy Warhol-inspired keyboard stand and a picture of Hopper on a horse appear, alongside a video of the album’s first track, ‘Kansas’, which, as it’s sung entirely by country singer Steve Earle, would have been pretty hard to perform live without him. The album is a unique mix of styles and interludes, covering the remarkable life of Hopper, and having a middle part of the show devoted to it works a lot better than scattering the songs throughout the set. Scott keeps the narrative going, talking of Hopper seemingly being in the right place at the right time so many times in his life, from acting with James Dean to being around Andy Warhol as he re-defined art, (represented by the wonderful ‘Andy (A Guy Like You)’). There’s a song dealing with his eight-day marriage to The Mamas and Papas’ Michelle Phillips, while ‘The Tourist’ brings out backing singer Barny Fletcher for the first time. He couldn’t look less like a Waterboy if he tried (his overall presence is more like a late-70s Bryan Ferry but with a truly cherubic voice, which really adds another dimension to the sound). The well-curated album cuts are accompanied by impressive visuals and it’s really touching as the life of Hopper is illustrated through to its inevitable conclusion ‘The Passing Of Hopper’, with film of his (presumably real) final resting place.
There’s no break at all though before the band crash into ‘Don’t Bang The Drum’, the incredible lead track from their 1985 classic album This Is The Sea, before Scott takes over on piano to perform a “Northern Soul” (his description!) stomper of debut single ‘A Girl Called Johnny’, which leaves ‘Brother Paul’ space to put in an extraordinary keytar performance in lieu of the missing saxophone from the original. ‘The Pan Within’ also goes down a storm before the main set ends, with the band returning for an incendiary ‘Medicine Bow’. A song written by Fletcher, ‘Wasted Sunset’, is then performed as probably the set’s biggest surprise, a beautiful song though it undoubtedly is. The Waterboys’ biggest hit and signature song, ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ is a brilliant way to conclude the show, everyone involved in the show is on stage to give a truly euphoric version of the song.
Mike Scott may be into his fifth decade as head Waterboy, but his energy is absolutely infectious and his voice is still everything it ever was. The band will be back in the City for the Moseley Folk Festival in August.
