Lloyd Cole, The Sage Gateshead
Published Date: 06 May 2009
By Terry Kelly
IRONIC troubadour Lloyd Cole travels light these days.
Equipped with just two acoustic guitars and bottled water, the former poster boy of 1980s British pop writes and performs spare and rueful love songs.
A near-capacity audience in Hall Two enjoyed a finely-judged concert of new and old material spanning the 48-year-old’s entire career.
Fans lapped up classics from his time fronting the Commotions, including Rattlesnakes and Perfect Skin.
But it’s his solo career that burns brighter and longer, with such finely-calibrated studies in melancholia as Like Lovers Do, Late Night, Early Town and Trigger Happy demonstrating the quality of his mature writing.
Cole’s choice of covers was superb too, with Kris Kristofferson’s Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends and Burt Bacharach’s I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself almost stealing the show.
With a sprinkling of songs from his new four-CD boxset, Cleaning Out The Ashtrays, it made for a memorable night.
Link to original article online
Publication: The Shields Gazette
Publication date: 06/05/09