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A night out at Nalen with Neil Hannon and the Divine Comedy

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So very unusual for me to be going to a gig on a Saturday evening. And I wasn’t the only one, who was enjoying the possibility of being out on the town again. Thee was a buzz in the air.

Nalen is one of Stockholm’s oldest and most stylish venues for live music. Back in the 30s and 40s it was famed for ballroom dancing and later for jazz concerts by the like of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. With its high ceiling, velvet curtains and art deco embellishments; it was a perfect choice of venue for the wistful, bitter-sweet, nostalgic sounds of the Divine Comedy.

There was quite a queue to get in. As we waited, my Austrian pal, Wolfgang, and I got chatting to a lass from Chile. That surprised me. There is something so very British about Neil Hannon’s songs, I hadn’t expected an international fanbase. She’d heard a song on Spotify by chance, really liked it and then explored further. I can understand that. The songs are moreish.
This was the last night of a quite extensive European tour. TDC I read are rather popular in France and several other places that you would not expect.

We mentioned to our Santiago senörita that we go to the Roskilde Festival every year. She reminisced abut attending the festival in her youth. On the Monday morning after it was all over, her idea of fun was to go round setting fire to abandoned tents. I wonder how many other Latin American arsonists there are in the Hannon fanbase!

The Stockholm audience covered a broad age range and was definitely not blokeish: a lot of women. Two girls in their twenties were standing in front of me and were noticeably chuffed when their favourite songs got played. It soon became clear that most people in the room were rather familiar with the TDC songbook.

I was nervous. I’ve seen Neil Hannon once before in Stockholm with @DuCo01. Solo, he had treated us to a wonderful show, in which he’d had fantastic contact with the audience. Witty, self-deprecatory: a true showman. Would he be able to pull this off with a five-piece band? I was happy to see that one of the keyboard players played the accordion. Promising! That was later to be the icing in the cake in the superb version of Lady of a Certain Age

Well, he certainly did pull it off. And from the first song, Absent Friends, it was clear that the vocals were to be wonderfully high in the mix.

Bidding us welcome, Neil explained that the set would be nothing but the (he mimed inverted commas) “hits.” “None of the difficult stuff!” During the 90 minute set that followed, I realised what a cornucopia of very distinctive, memorable, quirky, catchy songs he has written! And what a consummate storytellerhe is

The band treated us to a cavalcade of fine songs and got a very warm, enthusiastic response from the audience.

We all clapped superbly as Neil sung of the nuptials of Norman and Norma, who got married in Cromer, got drunk in Majorca and reignited their passion in Clacton.
We sung along to National Express and an impromptu version of Mamma Mia done as a special treat for the Swedish audience. It was greeted by a roar of applause.
As was Something for the weekend which rocked along very nicely.

The setlist did not disappoint.
Indie disco. Mutual Friend. Generation Sex. Your Daddy’s Car…….

He mentioned that his first Stockholm gig had been at Cirkus in1994, supporting Tori Amos. Wolfgang was surprised. “I was at that gig! I don’t remember that” Out with his phone to check. I could not believe it. He has a record of all the concerts he has ever been to constantly at his finger tips!! Nothing compulsive there, eh? I can’t remember the names of artists I saw a few weeks ago.

A magnificent version of Tonight we fly was the final song

Tonight we fly
Over the houses
The streets and the trees

So what are your favourite Neil Hannon songs? After 30 years, there is quite a back catalogue to choose from. Let’s not forget the two Duckworth Lewis Method albums with Thomas Walsh from Pugwash.

And the theme music for the IT Crowd and Father Ted. And last but not least My Lovely Horse, co-written with Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews.

Let’s all sing along now!

I want to shower you with sugarlumps. And ride you over fences. Polish your hooves every single day. And bring you to the horse dentist.
My lovely lovely lovely horse.
The Divine Comedy are staring their UK tour on 25th April. I can warmly recommend an evening out in their company.
And if you shout politely, Neil may even treat you to a song by ABBA!

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3

Comments

    • Thanks a lot! I’ve never heard the last three.

      I’m looking forward to exploring the Tube for clips!
      Mutual Friend

      The Summerhouse

      Birds of Paradise Farm

      I’m all you need

  3. That 1994 Tori Amos support slot must have been extensive – I was at the London Palladium gig, which was the first time I became aware of TDC. I went out and bought the Liberation & Promenade the following day.

    My gigging pal thought they were awful – but he liked Oasis, so was an unreliable witness.

  4. I am officially jealous. I’d love to see him/them. Chances of them turning up in Murwillumbah are slim, I suppose…

    This is one of my faves…in fact the whole album is.

      • The first time I visited relatives in Australia (1998) I bought a single by The Whitlams, (Melbourne), and was pleasantly surprised to find a version of Your Daddy’s Car on the ‘b’ side. So at least somebody had heard of them down there.

        • That is fascinating! @garyt.

          But then again, back to that Chilean girl, Neil writes songs that are memorable and make an impression. I love it. Neil Hannon with an Australian accent!

          That ABC article I posted is an excellent overview of TDC’s career.

          What a range of influences Neil Hannon has! Scott Walker, Kraftverk, Noel Coward, Radiohead, Michael Nyman, The Magnetic Fields, ELO, REM, My Bloody Valentine …..

          Casanova is the first TDC album I bought. Now I have just read about the background::

          “Despite the band’s first three albums failing to make an impact on the British charts, The Divine Comedy received a bigger recording budget for its fourth album.

          This was thanks to a stroke of reflected luck — label-mate Edwyn Collins had enjoyed a worldwide smash-hit with his song A Girl Like You, which meant The Divine Comedy’s tiny record label, Setanta, had a lot more money to throw at their 1996 album, Casanova.

          Britpop was in the ascendancy, Oasis and Blur were dominating the charts, and Hannon seized his chance.

          “I saw the scene developing around me in London, what would become Britpop, and I thought ‘I want a bit of the action’,” Hannon said.

          “I could see a lot of the things that influenced them I knew all about, like easy listening stuff and the big Bond soundtracks and Morricone and ’60s orchestral pop.

          “I loved all of that, so I thought I’m going to do a bit of that.”

          Casanova thrust The Divine Comedy into the spotlight and brought Hannon closer to the orchestral pop sound he’d been dreaming of.

          “In many ways I was reading from the Jeff Lynne handbook — I’d been drip-fed ELO by my eldest brother when I was really young,” he said.

          “Casanova reminds me of (Lynne’s) eye for detail and how something happens all the time. Just when you’re getting a little bit bored of a song, suddenly it goes mental and into a completely different area.”
          (Copyright Jeremy Lee ABC.AU)

    • That’s an album I’ve been playing a lot recently. Some belters on there; I especially like ‘Eye of the Needle’, interesting coming from the son of a bishop.

      • Son of a bishop! Well I never!

        Here’s a fine song from that album that he played on Saturday. It sounds a little Prefab Sprouty perhaps.

        I scarcely recognise him in this video. Jeans? Yikes!

        And here from 2001 is Neil, once again fairly unrecognisable in a black T shirt.

        Bad Ambassador.

        This is proving to be a fascinating journey through his back pages..

  7. Mrs. Paws is a massive Divine Comedy fan. As a tie in to another thread she wants ‘Charmed Life’ playing at her funeral. It’s a lovely song and now brings a (hopefully by many years) pre-emptive tear to the eye when I hear it now.

    A lot of their stuff has grown on me over the years and I would say that ‘bang goes the knighthood’ is probably my favourite album of theirs. The song ‘down in the street below’ is on our playlist every Christmas.

  8. I first saw TDC in Belfast’s Empire Music Hall, just after Casanova, but before THAT single. There were maybe a couple of dozen in the audience. A few months later, after THAT single, they were back in the same venue, and it was rammed. Saw them a while later in Belfast on St Paddy’s night, and in Edinburgh with Duke Special supporting. Every gig was brilliant.

  10. This is interesting @garyt and @Duco01. Both of you have seen Neil live three times. By the time I got to see him, he’d developed this charmingly retro look, which he still has today. It’s all very low-key and I don’t want to make too big a deal of it.

    But I feel he’s gradually found a stage persona (tweed suit, tie etc) which allows him to be more himself more comfortably.. But I may be totally off target,

    Wjat cannot be dispute is hs very considerable talent.

  11. Well I never! In 1998, TDC were one of the headliners at Glastonbury. Flavour of the Month after National Express.

    Here they are at the Reading Festival with a song they did not perform on Saturday night, despite several requests from the audience.

    He did apologise for the lyrics though!

    “I’ll grow wings and fly to Sweden
    When my time is come
    Then at last my eyes shall see them
    Heroes everyone
    Ingmar Bergman
    Henrik Ibsen
    Karin Larsson
    Nina Persson
    Sweden, Sweden, Sweden
    In Sweden”

    Henrik Ibsen indeed! He is still embarrassed about that faux-pas.

      • Is this the first time Rodrigo Leão has featured on The Afterword? I first came across him a few years ago through the wonderful Florestas Submersas. I do need to submerge myself in this thread because I have always had a soft spot for Neil Hannon, but have only really scratched the surface with him. Looking forward to working my way through the videos. Until then:

        • Very glad we’ve inspired you to explore TDC’s back catalogue, @Martin Hairnet.

          Until I started this thread, I really knew very little about Mr Hannon.

          Has Rodrigo been mentioned on the AW before? Having Googled, I appreciate that he is a very big name at home in Portugal.

          “The Portuguese composer and pianist Rodrigo Leão could be described as “contemporary classical”, but this hardly does justice to the singular path he treads, a genre of its own, instantly recognisable and strongly reminiscent of his work as leader of the group Madredeus.”

          https://theartsdesk.com/new-music/album-rodrigo-le%C3%A3o-o-m%C3%A9todo

          Kurt Wagner of Lambchop appears on RL’s latest album: “A ESTRANHA BELEZA DA VIDA”:

          • Watched some of the vids. last night and then went on YouTube looking for fairly recent complete live performances. Stumbled across this quirky French production of the Office Politics album performed live. I hadn’t heard the album before and I was marvelling at the band and all the ace synths on display, when up pops a very knowing song about synths! He’s an understated, yet captivating performer. I really admire his laconic, bittersweet approach to lyric writing, his telling glances at ordinary things.

            • Thanks, Martin. I’ll take a look at that later.

              On the subject of France, I’ve just signed up for the TDC fansite. ( it’s free and looks rather promising,

              http://www.ashortsite.com

              I was fascinated that it is a bilingual site in English and French.
              I’ve now learn that “reprise” is cover version French and that Swedish singer Peter Jobäck (NOT a favourite of mine) has recorded two Hannon covers (or massacres as the French fan describes them): Absent Friends and Our mutual friend,

  16. I learnt several interesting bit and pieces from that 30 years of the Divine Comedy film.

    Neil is taking care of several “rescue pigs”. A quick Google confirmed that he is an active campaigner for ethical farming.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/it-s-really-not-right-plans-to-export-live-pigs-to-china-condemned-1.4705099

    The meat industry is mentioned in this rather entertaining interview about endings.

    https://www.undertheradarmag.com/interviews/the_end_neil_hannon_of_the_divine_comedy_on_endings_and_death

    The programme also reminded me that Mr H’s lyrics are frequently influenced by the books he has been reading.

    https://www.clashmusic.com/features/their-library-the-divine-comedy

    He is quite a voracious reader..

    ” The best book I’ve read recently is “The Rest Is Noise” by Alex Ross. It’s a very thick tome about 20th-century classical music. It filled in a lot of blanks my knowledge as well as being a riveting read.”(The Independent)

  17. Some favourite Divine Comedy songs. The top three are genuine masterpieces.
    What a brilliant lyricist Neil Hannon is.

    1. Tonight we Fly
    2. A Lady of a Certain Age
    3. Sunrise
    4. Lucy
    5. Everybody Knows (Except you)
    6. Becoming More Like Alfie
    7. When the Lights go out all over Europe
    8. The Certainty of Chance
    9. Something for the Weekend
    10. The Pop Singer’s Fear of the Pollen Count
    11. Something for the Weekend
    12. If I Were You (I’d be Through with Me)
    13. The Dogs and the Horses
    14. Norman and Norma
    15. Songs of Love
    16. Bernice Bobs her Hair
    17. A Woman of the World
    18. Death of a Supernaturalist
    19. Charmed Life
    20. Absent Friends

    • What a superb list! Neil clearly agrees with you, as a large number of them were in the set last Saturday..

      Bernice bobs her hair is a short story by F Scott Fitzgerald made into a film storting Shelley Duvall.

  18. Recently caught one of Neil’s UK dates. Fantastic as always. Delighted Gin Soaked Boy is back in the set!

    If anyone missed the boxset from 2020, if you can get your hands on one I’d thoroughly recommend it.

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