The Hollies - Concert Review

Nottingham Royal Concert Hall, 20^th November 2004 - by Ron Garner

I arrived in Nottingham around 3pm looking forward to the evening concert after two great shows in Buxton and Derby, it turned out I wasn’t disappointed.

The band kicked off with the old Supremes hit “Stop In The Name Of Love” featuring some great vocal harmonies reminiscent of how the band sounded in the 60’s, followed swiftly by a number of hits from that era such as “On A Carousel” which Tony Hicks wrote with Allan Clarke & Graham Nash.

These were followed by a new arrangement of the Bruce Springsteen song “Sandy” with Peter Howarth on vocals and guitar, pausing briefly to adjust his microphone stand. This particular song hasn’t been a favourite Hollies track of mine but I really like this new version which also featured Tony and Ray on harmony vocals and a lovely string arrangement by Ian Parker.

Whilst in the acoustic mode, the boys did a version of “Gasoline Alley Bred”.

Next up was a different version of the Graham Gouldman song “Look Through Any Window“ which starts quietly then builds with some great guitar work from Tony Hicks and new boy Steve Lauri who’s doing a great job taking over from Alan Coates at short notice.

Tony then paid a moving tribute to singer Carl Wayne who died from cancer recently, this lead into a version of the Move’s hit “Flowers In The Rain” sung by Ray Stiles who summed it up by calling Carl a great man. It would be nice if the boys could feature at least one of Carl’s songs in the future as they do seem to suit The Hollies.

Peter echoed the sentiments of a lot of people in his introduction to “Soldier’s Song” saying that he hoped one day war would end. It seems incredible that Mike Batt who wrote this powerful song also wrote the Womble song, “Remember You’re A Womble“!

Ian then came to the front of the stage with his accordion for “We’re Through” which sounds far better than the original with some great percussion work from Bob Elliott.

The first half of the show closed with “Blowin’ In The Wind”, a big hit single for the band in Europe but only released in the UK on “ Hollies sing Dylan “.

After a 20 minute interval, the band returned with Peter resplendent in cowboy hat to perform “Curly Billy”, a track which I haven’t heard them play live since 1992 when they did it as part of a medley at a show in Holland.

It was audience participation time next with the clap along introduction to “I Can’t Let Go”, a big hit in 1966.

This was followed by “Sorry Suzanne“. Peter seemed to get the words right on this occasion after fluffing them a few days before in Derby.

Compact band versions of “Yes I Will” and the second Graham Gouldman song of the evening “Bus Stop” followed. On this, Ian demonstrated his skills on accordion once again.

Steve Lauri took over the spotlight on lead vocal for “I Can’t Tell The Bottom From The Top”. It’s a great credit to his professionalism that he’s fitted in so quickly along with Peter, I hope they will join the band on a regular basis.

Tony demonstrated his song writing skills on the acoustic version of “Too Young To Be Married”.

In complete contrast to the original band version done earlier in the first half, Peter performed a beautiful version of “Here I Go Again” with his own guitar accompaniment which I really like. It was interesting to hear the song performed in a totally different way.

The whole band came back on stage for “I’m Alive“ after which Ian clowned around with Robin Hood, no doubt to remind Peter of when he performed in “Robin – Prince of Sherwood“ at the nearby Theatre Royal.

We were then transported to some exotic location for “Carrie Anne” with some great steel band effects from Ian.

Peter gave us the background story of how the song “Stop Stop Stop” came about
(sounding quite jealous that he wasn’t around at the time) before Tony went into a long intro on banjo.

The set closed with the classic ballad The Air that I breathe featuring one of the greatest guitar introductions of modern times.

After a well deserved ovation, the band encored with the US hit “Long Cool Woman” complimented by some great live footage of the band on the video screen behind. I can’t understand the band’s reluctance to release a live video / DVD.

“Birthday boy” Ray Stiles gave us Tiger Feet and the evening ended with the much requested “He Ain’t Heavy” featuring Peter giving as good a vocal performance as I’ve ever heard.

Setlist

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