Hue and Cry – Wirral

Venue:

Heswall Hall

Date: 22/11/2025

Hue and Cry don’t get a lot of attention here (or maybe even love?) and I’ve never been sure why. Possibly because they straddled a line between some fairly breezy early pop hits (Looking for Linda, for example) and an intellectual bent lyrically that some may not appreciate and have seen as pretentious. In other artists that combination seems to go down well but not always in this case, unfairly, in my view. Nothing wrong for me in wrapping socially conscious lyrics inside breezy pop tunes! Pat Kane also maybe didn’t sell himself particularly well at all times which I’m sure would have rubbed some people up the wrong way.

Clearly, they can’t sell out the bigger venues these days but even so the brothers coming to Wirral’s Heswall Hall (where? I hear you wonder) was a shock. It’s a small venue which normally houses tribute acts so seeing H&C booked in got to me too late – fully sold out. It’s a venue that holds around 200 maximum and the cabaret style seating probably reduced that further. Not cheap either at £37 a ticket – I know that’s not expensive these days but hell, this is Heswall Hall! A short stint on the wating list and two tickets finally came my way.

I’ve seen them several times over the years, although not for about 15 years now, both on their own and with a full band. This was a duo show but Greg is an excellent musician and they didn’t need to resort to too much in the way of backing tracks to create a great atmosphere and then it was only on the more up tempo stuff where the sound needed filling up. Bloody hell, people (not me, rest assured) even danced at one point although Pat made a point that it would be the only bit of the evening where that was likely to happen.

Pat’s voice has held up marvellously for a man in his mid-sixties and he dominated the songs in a good way. He’s also got 40 years’ experience of managing a crowd and he’s funny in between songs. As a long-term fan with just about everything they’ve recorded, there were a couple of my personal favourites missed out (their version of Tom Waites’ Martha genuinely never fails to bring a tear to my eye) but they played most of the stuff anyone would have wanted and only two tracks from a forthcoming release (Electro, would you believe and rather good the two were) from “sometime” in 2026. They have a gift for writing insanely good melodies that has never gone way.

Very enjoyable evening out and we only had to drive 5 minutes to get there (we live in the town!). Recommended.

The audience:

Less bald heads than I expected but a mixed crowd. Several groups of ladies, which must say something about something.

It made me think..

I wish more acts would play here

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