Richard Hawley live at Grand Pier, Weston-super-Mare: Gig Review

Live4ever 13 October, 2025

A photo of musician Richard Hawley

Richard Hawley by Dean Chalkley

The Ocean was Richard Hawley’s musical high point, as its lilting rhythm swelled into an extended passage of Hendrix-like guitar squalls, turning the album centrepiece into a mid-set showstopper.

When Coles Corner first appeared in 2005, Richard Hawley’s lush orchestral pop was often labelled ‘retro’. Two decades on, it simply sounds timeless.

At the end of Weston-super-Mare’s Grand Pier, Sheffield’s favourite son (with all apologies to Messrs Cocker and Turner) revisits his breakthrough album with warmth, humour and characteristic understatement as the latest stop on the commemorative tour.

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The set opens in hushed reverence with the familiar strings of the title-track sweeping through the old building.

Clad in a pale blue jacket, Hawley checks in on the crowd midway through the song with a gentle, ‘Everyone OK?’, before easing into Just Like The Rain, whose vulnerable skiffle rhythm flickers with bluegrass energy.

The elegant waltz of Hotel Room shimmers, while Darlin’ Wait for Me reasserts the intimacy of the album.

On the likes of Tonight and I Sleep Alone, Richard Hawley’s oaky baritone carries both tenderness and grit, supported by a faultless band; guitarist Shez Sheridan’s slide and pedal-steel flourishes added texture throughout, particularly on the Johnny Cash-indebted (Wading Through) The Waters of My Time.

However, the venue itself is perhaps not fit for purpose; with no ‘entrance’ to speak of, security is lax meaning that people can simply wander in through the bar without a ticket.

Furthermore, midway through the set an audience member is taken ill, forcing Hawley to pause mid-story.

Classy as ever, he handles the interruption with concern and candour, downing his guitar to allow things to play out before returning to the stage to admit he was understandably ‘not happy’ that there was no medic in the entire venue.

However, ever the professional and underpinning his humanity, he ploughed on.

Perhaps it was revenge; earlier in the evening, Richard Hawley had playfully chided the crowd by intimating that Storm Amy had caused ‘thousands of pounds’ worth of improvements’ to the town.

Elsewhere, he slipped into a pitch-perfect Paul Weller impression, telling a tale of how the former Jam man had given him the Rickenbacker he was about to play in the hope that he’d, ‘stop playing that Ted shit.’

The Ocean was the night’s musical high point, as its lilting rhythm swelled into an extended passage of Hendrix-like guitar squalls, turning the album centrepiece into a mid-set showstopper.

But rather than slavishly reproducing Coles Corner, Richard Hawley treated the commemorative tour with a healthy disrespect, omitting the closing Last Orders and stating that a ’10-minute piano tune’ (actually five minutes) wouldn’t fit the mood.

Instead, he moved through a whistlestop tour of songs from across his career. Tonight The Streets Are Ours is buoyant and immediate; I’m Looking For Someone To Find Me rattles with skiffle urgency; Don’t Stare At The Sun squalls and blooms, followed by a thunderously gunslinging Standing At The Sky’s Edge.

The sole effort from last year’s In This City They Call You Love, Prism In Jeans slots seamlessly among the older material.

After the glam stomp of Alone and the uplifting Is There A Pill? close the main set, Richard Hawley returns for a solo rendition of For Your Lover Give Some Time, dedicated to his wife of 31 years.

Hawley’s full ensemble – including Sheridan, bassist Colin Elliot, drummer Dean Beresford, keyboardist John Trier, guitarist Bryan Dale, and a string quartet led by cellist Liz Hanks – all get their dues, Hawley keen to emphasise that while it’s his name in lights, it’s very much a band effort, who all rejoin for a boisterous and cathartic Heart Of Oak.

As the badge (given out by representatives of mental health charity Talk) says: Tonight, The Beach Is Ours.

Richard Bowes

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