A comfy pair of old socks, washed - review by Helen Burns

On a cold and drizzly night Maggie, Rona and myself got to Macclesfield quite early and spent an uneasy 45 minutes in the pub awaiting the great opening of Bar Cuba’s doors. Rona eventually stuck her head out of the door and announced that a queue had formed, so off we legged it, only to discover that the ‘queue’ consisted of 2 fans plus Glenn and Suzanne, who couldn’t get in either. Anyway, they were shortly allowed in, and Suzanne kindly let us in too to listen to the soundcheck, as it wasn’t a night fit for a dog to be out. The soundcheck included Cash Machine plus some rather nice songs that none of us knew (new ones perhaps?).

Bar Cuba is a lovely venue, which I’d warmly recommend to the uninitiated. It’s the perfect size to be intimate yet uncramped, good ambience and sound, friendly staff………..it even has clean toilets, which can’t always be guaranteed in music venues. The only downside of the evening was the little band of people who just turn up to have a chat during the songs.

We settled in our usual pitch to the right of the stage and enjoyed the local support (Steve Jarvis?) who was very good in spite of continual yakking by the audience throughout his set.

GT came on at 9.30 and played for the customary 2 hours. His voice, his guitar playing and his banter with the audience were all wonderful – probably one of the best gigs I’ve seen. He was relaxed and happy, dissolving into fits of giggles at a couple of points. He especially enjoyed the dry ice machine which gave him that rock and roll sensation (Spinal Tap?) and enabled him to back off the stage at the end with a towel over his head hoping to merge gradually into the fog.

And the music was just lovely, as always. Lots of fun stuff like Annie and Hourglass and Piccadilly. But as is so often the case, one of the biggest highlights was You Were Always On My Mind sung with heart wrenching beauty and power (the chatters were shushed into silence here and the WOMAN WHO DROPPED HER GLASS IN THE MIDDLE OF IT HAS TO DIE!), but to be honest there were so many songs where I had to close my eyes to fully savour that sound that it’s surprising I managed to take note of the sartorial details.

For those who are interested in such trivia he started off in a lime green T shirt, jeans and black lace up trainers, but went off for a costume change half way through – or at least tried to as the door was jammed shut and he had to fight with it. He returned wearing a navy blue Betty Ford Clinic T shirt, which I asked him about later. “A friend gave it to me” he said. “That’s what they all say” I replied.

And the hair was…….well……..optimum.

He made plenty of time to chat to us afterwards with his usual good humour and patience at all the requests for autographs and photos. And if you happen to read this Glenn, we were NOT stalking you in the car park afterwards. We were waiting for Maggie’s car to demist. Honest.

In case you were wondering, Glenn conceded that his ‘association’ with Squeeze may be an encouragement for people to come to see him in a solo capacity, but that as he now has his own album and career we should think of him as a comfy pair of old socks, washed.

SETLIST

Tough Love
When the hangover strikes
No place like home (complete with giggles)
Touching me, touching you
This is where you aint
Take me I’m yours
The boys are back in town (merely an excerpt)
The truth (with thanks to Nick Harper for inspiration for guitar solo at the end)
Sunday breakfast treat (don’t forget the egg)
Dunno what the next one’s called!
Up the junction
I won’t see you
Voodoo chile
Goodbye girl
Piccadilly

[Costume change]

I’ve returned
Some fantastic place
Other world
Labelled with love
Annie get your gun
Last train to Clarksville
Wine spodee-odee
Hourglass (clapping bit from the audience was “so nearly great”)
Vicky verky
You were always on my mind
Parallel world
Is that love?

[Encore]

Tempted
This summer
Another nail