Tonight has been a long time coming.
As a long time admirer of him and the work of his band Erasure, and unfathomable as it is to me, but tonight is the very first time that I’ll have seen Andy Bell live, in any way shape or form. But seeing as he’s in town, and his recent solo album Ten Crowns is stuffed full of great songs, it seemed that this was an ideal opportunity to break my AB duck.
Sadly, due to the time it takes saying fond farewells to old, beloved football stadiums, there’s no time to catch the support. It’s a case of getting just in time for the main event.
Coming onstage at a thankfully ‘there’s-work-on-Monday’ friendly 8:40, resplendently dressed in a reflective ruby-red suit – which is as glittering as his dance moves – Bell and his band launch straight into Ten Crowns opener ‘Breaking Thru The Interstellar’, and it’s a joy to here his dulcet voice sounding far more natural than the autotuned-esque recorded version.
And it’s not long that we have to wait before the first big Erasure sing-along numbers of the evening, as a huge ‘Blue Savannah‘ and always catchy ‘Sometimes‘ follow, before he discards his suit jacket to reveal an equally sparkly vest ahead of recent single ‘Don’t Cha Know’, which showcases his all-American backing band, who don’t miss a beat all evening. But they are still upstaged by Bell’s immense vocal, which is so strong, maybe even more so now than in Erasure’s late 80’s/early 90’s imperial phase.
The crowd (unusually for a sometimes mardy Liverpool audience) are on their feet from minute one, and they are more than happy to oblige, even without being asked to, with the “Guilty!” screaming parts on ‘Drama!’, before Bell reveals that him and Vince Clarke are meeting up in August, albeit they are “taking things slowly” but hopefully that means that the next Erasure album won’t be far behind. For now his focus is (rightly) firmly on his solo career, and to that end he teams up with his fellow onstage vocalist Hailey Steele (who takes the Debbie Harry part) on ‘Heart’s A Liar‘, and there’s a roaring version of anti-religion stomper ‘Godspell‘, which baffles those unaware of the record’s variety of sounds and themes, and Bell himself acknowledges that it can be tricky if the crowd are unfamiliar with the newer stuff, but unusually for a musician, he does this by sympathising with his audience on this.
He has no such problem with the older material, with ‘Chains Of Love‘ and ‘Love To Hate You’ more than satisfying a crowd that evidently adore him, but even they are quick to point out the only (tiny) flaw in the set all night, which is that he keeps referencing it being Monday night (it’s only Sunday, Andy; ife on the road, eh?)
The relentless gallop of the set is temporarily broken up as Bell leaves the stage to enable the rest of the band to do a somewhat country-ish AOR interpretation of kinda-forgotten mid-90’s single ‘Breathe‘, before a euphorically pure-disco cover of Olivia Newton-John‘s classic ‘Xanadu’, which serves to further show off those vocal chords.
‘Victim Of Love‘ and ‘Chorus‘ reiterate the feeling that he is only doing all the Erasure stuff that you would want him to do (sadly with the exception of the peerless ‘Stop!‘), there are no B-sides or obscure album tracks here, all of which are interspersed with Ten Crowns‘ highlights, such as a thumping version of ‘Dance Of Mercy’.
“This is a good one, if I do say so myself” he says. And he’s right, it’s his solo highlight ‘Put Your Empathy On Ice’, and he does it some justice tonight, before ending the main set with a searing ‘Oh L’amour’.
A large chunk of this city has spent the whole day clapping and singing, so it’s good to see that they continue this theme throughout the encore, which consists of a dramatically stunning version of album closer ‘Thank You‘ and the classic ‘A Little Respect’, which understandably garners scenes of unadulterated bliss throughout this old hall.
One thing’s for sure, I can guarantee that I will never again pass up the opportunity of seeing him live in the future. Tonight has proved beyond doubt that Andy Bell is one of pop music’s greatest showmen, with both a back (and current) catalogue to back up the talent, and most of all, a sheer love of playing it.
