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Review: Fairground Attraction, Bristol Beacon – ‘Timeless quality’
Just a few days ago, 80s popstrel Rick Astley was on the radio talking about “nostalgia shows”.
Presumably to make himself feel a bit better, he said something like “every band that’s released more than about three singles plays nostalgia shows”.
Thirty-five years after their acrimonious split, Fairground Attraction are back and happy to celebrate the old stuff.
Any band that walks on stage to a snatch of Sentimental Journey is on more than nodding terms with nostalgia.
Thirty-five years after their acrimonious split, Fairground Attraction are back
As early as the first song, however, they showed that this was not going to be an elongated wallow in the past.
A Hundred Years of Heartache is taken from the new album Beautiful Happening.
With Graham Henderson’s accordion and the brushed drums of Roy Dodds, it has the same folkish, heartbroken country feel that some of their finest moments have. An elegant turn around a sawdust strewn dancefloor.
It’s Eddi Reader that is still, unavoidably, the point of difference though.
Eddi Reader’s voice is one of the finest you will ever hear
Reader’s voice is, very simply, one of the finest you will ever hear.
Full of Scottish Soul, the edges, you imagine, roughened by scotch and cigarettes, it has depth and power, slink and sway.
At times there’s almost something of the 50s pop chanteuse about it; if Julie London had grown up hollering on Glasgow’s streets maybe she’d have sounded like this.
On Gatecrashing Heaven, another new one, she is all slash-curtain faded glamour, belting out sinful tales with plenty of pre-rock n roll sass.
So much of the set has that timeless quality.
The new ones could be 30-odd years old, equally they could have been with us forever.
Last Night (Was a Sweet One) is a gentle waltz, Sun and Moon a 50s pop croon while Miracles is full of skiffly hipsway.
Roger Beaujolais on vibraphone and Reader bashing away on an acoustic guitar, giving a comfortable looseness and sense of fun.
After thirty-five years, it looks as though all hatchets have been safely buried.
It is, of course, the old ones that much of the audience have come to hear.
A Smile in a Whisper, taken from the classic First of a Million Kisses, turns the Beacon into an underwater ballroom, dazzled with the reflections of a thousand eyes while The Moon is Mine prompts Reader into a skirt-flinging jig.
Her Jazz-inflected scatting around a skiffle beat and red wine-stained accordion is just heavenly.
Moon on the Rain throws a string of fairy lights around your heart and Find My Love sees a smartphone frenzy, a bank of small lights videoing a mass singalong.
Bristol boy, Mark E Nevin, shows that not only is he a fine songwriter, but he’s a superb guitarist too. At one point he fondly remembers seeing Slade and Bowie in this very hall, a nostalgic grin in his voice.
Clare has always been one of Fairground Attraction’s great songs and, tonight, it’s wonderful.
Reader’s feline desperation echoes over rooftops as Nevin conjures a seductive New Orleans swing.
Henderson’s queasy accordion ushers on the ghost of Edith Piaf for Fairground Attraction and then they play Perfect.
Every voice in the place joins Reader in an open-hearted celebration of love, of friendship, of memory. Hands are held, smiles are impossibly broad. No-one cares that this song has TV-ad ubiquity, there’s just so much love for this band, for this moment. Be cynical all you like, but you’re wrong.
Sure, Fairground Attraction lean on their back catalogue but tonight is not just about nostalgia. This is a night for reacquainting yourself with old friends and celebrating the new things that you have to look forward to.
All images: Gavin McNamara
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