A rare Friday night foray out into the metropolis that is Bury St. Edmunds to see Paul Carrack at the Apex. Mucky weather but suitably sustained with pre gig food and drink we settled down for what we hoped would be an excellent evening.
First up as support was Nik Lowe. At first I thought we had a very exciting surprise guest whose first name had been spelt incorrectly but alas no. Nik was a singer songwriter very much in the current vogue and, though unfair to judge on the basis of circa 25 minutes, didn’t really get this old codger particularly excited. But what do I know, will probably be the next Ed Sheeran!
We’ve seen Mr. Carrack a couple of times before and he’s never let us down. Sadly and unjustly most often cited, if cited at all as the lead vocalist with Mike & The Mechanics, he’s a very fine solo artist in his own right, as well as being a founder member of the 70s group Ace. Great (as in truly excellent), expressive singer, very fine organist, no mean guitarist and not a bad songwriter, he and his band put on a very strong show. Occasionally, I think he maybe replicates the recordings a little too slavishly, and both he and the band sounded so much better when they chose to stretch out a little on some of the material as the gig progressed. It’s a bit of a shame that the biggest response tends to be for the hits he’s had with others (e.g. ‘The Living Years’) but he received a fantastic reception and seemed genuinely moved by the audience’s enthusiastic response. There aren’t and haven’t been many better British vocalists and I could even forgive him the fact that he thought that ‘If Loving You Is Wrong’ was first recorded by Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland – at least he’s an aficionado of the great man. (Luther Ingram by the way!). And ‘How Long’ is still a great song.