![]() ![]() I’ve seen a few acts in the last six months or so at the same venue – including Suzanne Vega and Howard Jones – do the ‘stripped back’ approach (presumably an economic necessity, for the most part) and the pattern is often the same. I’d seen the video of them doing this track online and at the time I thought it was a tad sterile, but it was moving and brilliant on this cold Islington night. I was wondering how my lack of knowledge of much of their music for the past 20 years was going to play out, but they judged the evening perfectly with a 90-minute set of hits, fan favourites and some well-picked covers, including Luther Vandross’ Never Too Much, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ The Tracks of My Tears and my personal favourite, a fine rendition of David Bowie’s Win (extra brownie points for picking a (relative) ‘deep cut’ from Young Americans). ![]() This arrangement seems to suit both parties well and the intimacy and beauty of London’s Union Chapel was light years ahead of standing in a boggy field straining to see a stage far in the distance (and wondering what time Madonna was coming on).Īs my Kate Bushian gap between gigs might indicate, I’m a bit of a fair-weather friend to Hue and Cry, but I really loved their music and bought loads of their records until the early nineties when my interest faded, probably due to the band’s passion for pop also fading, as they left record label Circa and when a bit ‘jazz’ for a while. The audience has shrunk, but so has the band – reduced down to the core of the two Kane brothers. ![]() But there was some method in this madness because Scottish siblings Pat and Greg Kane might only have had one hit record to their name, but it was what would become their signature tune, Labour of Love, and the timing was perfect, since they were riding high in the UK top ten that very week with the song.įast-forward 29 years to 2016, and last night I saw the band play live for the only the second time. It was a little bizarre at the time, I must admit, seeing this hitherto unheard of band playing on the same bill as superstar Madonna – very much in her ‘imperial’ phase – and no doubt this was the result of some record label/management lobbying. I first saw Hue and Cry live back in 1987, when they were a support act for Madonna at Roundhay Park in Leeds when Madge was on her ‘Who’s That Girl’ tour. ![]()
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