Live Review: Bill Ryder-Jones at Leeds Belgrave Music Hall


Rachel King

Rachel King




The hype machine doesn’t make too many stops in West North West these days; it prefers instead to pitch up east down the M62 where it chews up and spits out many an outfit whom it pretends to think are the next god’s gift to rock n’ roll.

Last year though, the fifteen-minute-giver made a rare excursion into the Wirral to size up Hooton Tennis Club, a slacker quartet whose début album ‘Highest Point In Cliff Town‘ was loaded with unironic references to a slew of classic late 20th century outfits ranging from Pavement to Teenage Fanclub.

Widely acclaimed on release, it was generally accepted that the band had managed something of a coup in persuading The Coral‘s former guitarist to accept the producer’s role. With his old group on long term hiatus and a full album of his own material scrapped, it seemed more than likely at the time that ‘Highest Point…’ might be the best thing Bill Ryder-Jones would be associated with in 2015.

How wrong we were.

Two months later, with the release of ‘West Kirby County Primary‘, the sometime contrarian re-established himself as a solo artist to be cherished, one whose drinking from the confessional trough remained a facet of writing to be admired and encouraged. Tonight, at the Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds, he takes to the stage looking like he’s just woken up, with the various members of By The Sea forming a backing band of quality and no little finesse.

At first, however, it’s hard not to feel a mutual sense of discomfort (halfway through the singer passes it off with a smile, saying dryly “I know it’s me that’s awkward”). Such is the sense of diffidence that it feels initially not like a show, but a rehearsal in someone’s front room, as despite being in the presence of some truly great songs – ‘Tell Me You Don’t Love Watching‘, ‘Daniel‘, ‘Catherine & Huskisson’ – the audience seems to be spending time working out how to love their performer without causing a fuss.

Gradually though, a sort of mutual dependency forms – one created both in the silences and space of this music which at first can be too wildly elliptical, but then realises itself as intimate and fascinating. Each song is delivered in a world-weary voice which cracks like old paper, the almost succour of ‘Let’s Get Away From Here‘ and an elegiac version of ‘Wild Swans‘ taking the narrowest of perspectives and making them into stories of the finest, always knowingly understated, grain.

It’s hard to act like wallflowers in the face of tunes this good of course, and the audience gives up its temporary wallflower status to the extent that, by the time a brief solo-solo interlude which includes both the picturesque ‘Seabirds‘ and ‘Put It Down Before You Break It‘, the punters are prepared to accept the odd gaffe (Ryder-Jones thanks everyone attending this Tuesday night gig for coming out on a Monday) and are happy to accept the utter lack of frills or pretence as entertainment.

This actions-speak-louder-than-words aesthetic is a little hard to process, but finds the perfect cypher with the night’s last song, the strobing ‘Two To Birkenhead‘. As if any destination could prompt the genius couplet, “they say that desperate times call for desperate pleasures”, the whether and why are quickly forgotten as the song itself builds to an overloaded, out of control finish which proves that like all great things, a boss sentiment can be bent and twisted but it still won’t break.



Right place then, right time: tonight proves that he probably doesn’t know it, but Bill Ryder-Jones is at the point of leaving the North West of Britain bound for anywhere he chooses to go.

(Andy Peterson)


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