Venue:
Civic Theatre, Auckland
Date: 21/05/2025
This was an efficient and stylish show where the show starts just after 8 and we’re in the car going home by 10. No support act. I don’t mind this at all.
Alison starts proceedings with a very downbeat and bleak song and my wife later confesses that she was worried that the whole show may be along these lines. She needn’t have worried – as soon as Alison talked the audience for the first time, you could tell that she was witty, self-effacing and genuinely pleased to be there. She talked of her newer material and played several songs from her new platter, the Key. These were impressive – some very deep and rich sounds and minor chord Cure-esque melodrama. A song about cycling follows. She explains that she wondered where a long-distance cyclist’s mind goes when they are in the saddle for such a long time. What do they think about? And then launches into a deeply Kraftwerk-type song, which is not a coincidence I’m sure and quite brilliant live.
She then tones it down for the “busker” acoustic part of the set, which is captivating largely due to her voice but the songs themselves didn’t take up residence in the memory.
At around about song 5, the crowd is delighted to hear Nobody’s Diary – a big Yazoo hit. Apparently she wrote the song when she was 16! I’d forgotten she’d written that one. I don’t think it’s not widely appreciated that both Yazoo albums have a Clarke/Moyet sharing the songwriting credits prettiy much 50/50. Vince Clarke is a pop genius of course but Yazoo’s success was the soulful element brought to the table by Moyet’s songwriting and her voice.
And what a voice she has. She tells us she has a cold and is holding back a bit as a result, but I didn’t notice that. The voice wraps its arms around the audience as we move into more familiar territory. Only You has no intro. Hearing that voice and the simple beauty of the song gave me that feeling at the back of the throat and the pit of the stomach. Like you almost feel like crying. Hearing it live is very emotional – and I could see I wasn’t the only one feeling it. Only You is in the same league as Yesterday, in my view.
The good-natured performance relax into Greatest Hits terrority as we gallop down the final straight. A quite lovely treatment Is This Love? makes that song much better and we are treated to Invisible, All Cried Out, Love Resurrection and a pretty splendid version of Situtation. She send the crowd home happy by belting out Don’t Go as a finale.
Most of the show was reflective and arty and she explained her work well – she acts on emotion and taps and when she sings, she’s fully immersed.
She’s not someone who just bashes out songs.
This was a very enjoyable show but I sense that if the some of the audience wanted a nostalgia-fest, they might feel like they only got a little bit of that. Talking of which…
The audience:
Like Jasper Carrott and his nutter on the bus, the Fuckwits get an email alert and book tickets next to me every time I go to a gig. This group were well into their 50s and chatted loudly throughout, as if they were at the pub. A Steward’s intervention shut them up for a while, but they were soon at it again. I did tune them out after a while but I wish I didn’t have to.
It made me think..
The privilege of seeing an artist a pure and unique voice is rare. I wish I had seen Kate Bush when I had the chance.
Last time I saw Alf was at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge. Bert Jansch was her unadvertised ‘special guest’ support act.
The woman in the row in front of me did a comical yawn and shouted “bor-RING!” at the end of each song. The second or third time she did it, I tapped her on the shoulder, proffered a fiver and invited her to get herself a drink from the bar if she wasn’t enjoying herself.
After lots of huffing and puffing, she did, though. Bert was great, and it was the last time I saw him.
Hell is other people, as that Satre geezer once said.
That’s awful. I’m glad you found a way to get rid of her.
Another irritant is the frequency of people leaving their seats for drinks/toilet. I don’t particularly mind people doing it…but not mid-song! At the cricket, you wait until the over ends – same principle at seated gigs.
I’m not sure she enjoyed Alf’s set much, either. Why bother going, then, apart from the drink?
Blimey, that’s one hell of a good double bill, I’d have enjoyed that.
Rude civilians at gigs really annoy me. Can’t they keep away from my things?
I would say, in general, Canadians are pretty well behaved. Can remember 4 specific occurrences of very poor behaviour, 3 of them in the US. One when Van Morrison was playing Astral Weeks in full at Madison Square Garden Theatre, one guy just wouldn’t shut up telling his mate about the history of each of the songs WHILE HE WAS PLAYING THEM. I told him to shut up, he was a bit shocked but he did so (I am a big guy)
Yes, in general Swedish audiences are also very well behaved when it comes to talking during songs and rowdy drunk behaviour (so much so that some acts complain that we are too quiet during the songs…)
But the one way in which Swedes always manages to be annoying during gigs – and I’m talking about standing gigs now, which are most of the gigs I go to (or used to go to) – is by passing through the audience in search of their mates in the front, or just a good spot to see the stage, shoving everybody aside to make room for them passing (always where I stand, perhaps because I’m short and looks easy to move aside…)
And the worst offenders do a very sneaky thing by acting like they’re on their way to the front of the audience, saying “excuse me” and making you move aside to let them through, but then they STOP at the very spot that you were occupying and where you had a great view! And there you are, in a much worse spot with some f-ing giraffe in front of you and that f-ing spot-thief next to you!
This makes me furious, but on the occasions when I’ve asked them to move out of my spot, they’ve just given me a condescending and smug smirk, before ignoring me…presumably because I’m just a short middle-aged woman and they’re young and selfish men who wants the best spot. So now I just refuse to move when those people come along, I’ll let someone else make that mistake.
I must admit that I did once stand behind one such jerk and deliberately kicked his legs fairly hard, every now and then during the first few songs, until he moved… This is just one of many reasons why I always try/tried to find a spot right at the very front!
I have the opposite problem in that I am very tall and blessed with a big head. If I am in the stalls, I have heard comments behind me which can hurt my feelings sometimes. No one likes to be made to feel like a freak – so in those circumstances I will slump down the best I can. At standing gigs I am happy to be at the back or the side of the stage. I feel better and I enjoy it more if I know I’m not in anyone’s way.
I am blessed with similar proportions. I have settled on getting there early enough so that i am taking a place near the front but it was the back of the crowd that was in when I got there. I then pretty much don’t move during the gig – anyone shorter than me didn’t stand behind me and I think its the least I can do to not move in front of them.
A few years back at an EELS standing gig in Manchester I had picked my spot with a decent view of the stage. About 15 minutes before show time 3 pissed up Aussies came and stood directly in front of me and were obviously going to be a pain in the arse.
I placed my arms in between two of them a gently pushed them apart and ensuring my view was how it had been before they arrived. I realised there was the possibility I could have git my head kicked in when one of them said ‘there was a polite way to do that and a not so polite way. Which way do you think yours was’
‘ I would guess the impolite way’ with a grin on my face which seemed to defuse the situation ever so slightly.
Quite a nuanced response for a pissed Aussie I reckon.
Probably a Kiwi then. 🙂