Once upon a time, a long long time ago, I helped put on a Turin Brakes show. But in the intervening twenty something years, life got in the way, and I lost touch with the band. They’ve busied themselves putting out 10 albums; tonight they present 7 songs from 7 of those albums, including Underdog from the Mercury nominated debut The Optimist LP, and closing with their biggest hit, Pain Killer. In this all too brief support slot, it’s difficult to discern if their musical style has developed a great deal, but I’m pleased to discover they’re still making music and I’ll try to catch up with what I’ve missed. Drummer Rob Allum is even wearing a Turin Brakes t-shirt. Maybe he’s worried he’ll forget which band he’s in, or perhaps a pint of Guinness was spilled earlier.
Turin Brakes will be back in Dublin in a month’s time, playing Whelans on 8th November.
Deacon Blue open with two songs from this year’s album The Great Western Road, and one from 2014’s A New House; over the course of the evening, they’ll play three quarters of the 2025 album; but it’s the opening bars of the fourth song Fergus Sings the Blues that get the fully seated 3arena to its feet. And the big tunes keep coming; if you’d written one song that’s such an all-timer as Dignity, you’d be rightly pleased with yourself, but Deacon Blue have several – the casual listener might be surprised at how dark and political Ricky Ross and his band are at times, but closer inspection of the lyrical content reveals they’ve always been this way; it wasn’t an economics course that taught me about Maynard Keynes, it was Deacon Blue.
The band show an energy befitting members half their age, and you’ve also got one of pop music’s most enduring love stories in Ross and McIntosh. This is the first tour since the death of keyboard player Jim Prime in June, and it’s unexpectedly moving and poignant, even to an old cynic like me.
Turin Brakes photos:
Deacon Blue photos & set-list:
Set-list:
Turn Up Your Radio!
Up Hope
Bethlehem Begins
Fergus Sings the Blues
Raintown
Mid Century Modern
That’s What We Can Do
Queen of the New Year
Cover From the Sky
How We Remember It
Chocolate Girl / Stone in Love with You
Wages Day
Ashore
Your Town
Loaded
The Believers
Wait on Me
When Will You – Make My Telephone Ring / If Not For You (Bob Dylan cover)
The Great Western Road
The Hipsters
Real Gone Kid
Curve of the Line
Dignity
People Come First
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Keep Me in Your Heart (Warren Zevon cover)
Photos and words – Ian Davies @shootspeedkilllight