The Hollies - Concert Review

Reading Hexagon, 30^th October 1999 - by Neil Slater

I have lost count of the number of times I have seen The Hollies live in concert. It is always a thoroughly entertaining night out, and my latest visit was no exception.

It was at The Hexagon, Reading on October 30th, mid-way through their latest UK Tour. As ever, The Hexagon was packed, and The Hollies went down a storm with standing ovations and dancing at the front during the Rock & Roll finale.

There are always subtle changes to their repertoire on each tour, and on this one Alan Coates, Ray Stiles and Ian Parker have more individual involvement. Alan's beautiful interpretation of Graham Nash's "Butterfly", Ray's 'up front' harmony during the acoustic section and Ian's introduction on a couple of occasions as well as his accordion 'walk about' into the audience.

Tony Hicks handles a couple of lead vocals, and Allan Clarke contributes some fine harmonica playing in an instrumental.

"After The Fox", with Peter Sellars providing some vocal warbling is a welcome addition to the set, as are other less well known songs like "Running Through The Night". Although all the songs that you would expect to be in there, are there.

I particularly like their new treatment of "Look Through Any Window" with the marvellous guitar playing form Tony and Alan. The atmosphere builds and builds. I always look forward to this one.

My friend Tom prefers "The Air That I Breathe", I prefer "He Ain't Heavy". What does it matter? They are both great and always go down well with the audience, as almost fever pitch is reached, prior to the Rock & Roll section.

After the loud atmospheric "Long Cool Woman" finishes in a crashing finale and The Hollies take their final bow, we reflect on yet another enjoyable night with the greatest group around.

True, there were a couple of technical hitches during the first half. Some of Bobby's drums were close to collapse, but were patched up by one of the back-stage crew, and did not halt the performance as Bobby carried on regardless. A string broke on Allan's acoustic guitar a minute into a song, but a change to electric guitar and the re-start of the song meant we didn't miss a thing. "Tony's guitar solo was too good to miss", was Allan's comment before the re-start. These were minor problems and dealt with in their usual professional manner.

My mate Tom's comment at the end summed it up. "GOOD VALUE", he said. He was right, they were, as always.

Our enjoyable evening was completed with a short chat with bobby at the Stage Door afterwards. As ever, he finds time to chat with the fans and appreciates the loyalty of the regulars. As long as we continue to support the band by turning up in large numbers I reckon they will entertain us for a good while yet, and maintain their "GOOD VALUE".

Neil Slater

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