GIG REVIEW: Marc Almond
November 4 @ The Grand Theatre, Leeds
LEEDS has always been a special place for Marc Almond.
It was here that he formed Soft Cell and first performed in Leeds Polytechnic art department common room 30 years ago.
And it was to the rather more opulent surroundings of the Grand Theatre that he returned – to an audience of longstanding devotees – tonight.
The now 53-year-old singer may have lost the top end of his vocal range since his near-fatal motorbike accident in 2004 but he can still turn on a performance full of passion.
A career-spanning two-hour set included lesser-known works as well as the obvious crowd-pleasers such as Mother Fist and Jackie. There were nods to his heroes Marc Bolan and David Bowie, and a string of personal reminiscences.
On his way to a Bowie concert in the 70s, he recalled, he was hit over the head with a bottle. Later, with blood and make-up streaming down his face, he "had the epiphany of David Bowie holding my hand during Rock 'n' Roll Suicide". Aptly Almond followed the memory with a new song, Trial by Eyeliner.
As ever the Southport-born singer's real forte though is as an interpreter of other people's torch songs – the highlights tonight being two Russian numbers. Beggar, by Vadim Kozin, a Romany tenor sent to the concentration camps of Siberia, had the raw intensity of Jacques Brel or Kurt Weill; The Cranes was more enigmatic, telling the tale of a flight of birds said to carry away the souls of dead soldiers.
Augmenting Almond's nine-piece band at intervals was American transgender musician Baby Dee, who had earlier played an eccentric solo set that sounded like the missing link between Antony Hegarty, Tom Waits and Nina Simone. In Almond's hands, however, her ballad Weakness for Roses was poignant and direct.
By the encore the star seemed visibly moved by the occasion. Friendship was dedicated to his audience ("I think we've all known each other long enough to be good friends"), while Say Hello, Wave Goodbye was adjusted to include a mention to Chapeltown, where Almond once lived in a damp bedsit.
Only the hardest of hearts could have failed to have been moved by the mass singalong that followed.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -2 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North west
