DEL AMITRI // YORK BARBICAN, YORK
Glaswegian Americana at it’s best – Del Amitri return to a packed York Barbican
★★★★☆ (4/5)
DEL AMITRI PERFORMING AT YORK'S BARBICAN - 18.09.2021
PICTURE BY: | JOHN HAYHURST PHOTOGRAPHY
My first time back in my home-town venue The Barbican in York and it is pretty well full for the grateful return of Del Amitri promoting their 7th studio album ‘Fatal Mistakes’ which seems to have taken an age to be released - mainly due to the recording only being finished the night before a full UK lockdown.
First though, another eagerly awaited return to the live stage for me personally of Phil Campbell, the former Temperance Movement frontman seemed to leave the band quite suddenly 2 years ago, and has now reinvented himself with The Byson Family who are supporting tonight. They play an invigorated set of Americana and Blues with Campbell looking really fit and well. His usual ‘ants in yer pants’ moves on stage were limited whilst he was strumming an acoustic guitar, but after a string broke he reverted to type and put his heart and soul into the performance. The band painted some impressive soundscapes and the queue at the merch stall for their new album was testament to an outstanding performance – I’m certainly putting them on the list to catch a headlining show sometime!
Del Amitri start subtly with just the double denim clad Justin Currie, and guitarist Iain Harvie on stage running an understated version of ‘When You Were Young’ and then the full band walk on for new song ‘Musicians and Beer’, its a cleverly worked routine and eases us into the evening.
“What happened York? Did you all go to the food market?” Currie enquires, “You used to be stood up at our gigs” – a few punters embarrassingly stand up and then he jokes “No its fine I can see rows of tiered faces instead”. He hasn’t lost the banter, and the voice tonight is still impeccably in order.
Another new track ‘All Hail Blind Love’ and you start to feel that tonight is going to be all about the new album. However, that thought is totally quashed when a salvo of 3 big hits – ‘Always The Last To Know’, ‘Not Where It’s At’ and ‘Kiss This Thing Goodbye’ get this crowd properly on their feet and dancing in the aisles.
At that point I realise that they could potentially do at least 45 mins just playing the hits, because peppered in-between 7 new songs from ‘Fatal Mistakes’ are some of the finest Radio 2 fodder (but were Top 20 back in the day) heard in the last 35 years. ‘Roll to Me’ an absolute classic, and then some forgotten memories like ‘Spit in the Rain’. This band should be reasonably high on the bill at the likes of the Isle of Wight festival and maybe they will next year once they have shaken off their pandemic dust. Yes there might be a few errors on intros etc. but that's understandable and forgivable in these unprecedented times, it’s just great to see the band back on a live stage and enjoying it.
The whole night was all about great harmonies – from opening act The Byson Family to Currie, Harvie and guitarist Kris Dollimore, those voices blended incredibly well – there must be something in that Glaswegian water! If there is such a genre as Scottish Americana well these 2 bands play it better than I’ve heard in ages. After the expected ‘Nothing Ever Happens’ during the encore we get my favourite track of ‘Be My Downfall’ and it is beauty in the extreme. A fantastic night of live music back at York Barbican with many more to come.
