When the Soul Rebels Grow Up

Everything comes back round again, they say. Such it is for the critical verdict on the career of Dexys Midnight Runners and their unique leader (and only constant) Kevin Rowland.

Starting out playing soul music with a Midlands slant in the post-punk years, Rowland managed to antagonise just about everyone he could (record label, bandmates, the press) over three albums in the first half of the 1980s. The last of those, Don’t Stand Me Down, managed to kill stone dead a career that just a couple of years prior had seen them top of the singles chart both here and the States.

What followed was a spell in the wilderness for Rowland, personal issues not helped by a crippling drug habit. When he finally got it together to record a fine album of covers of songs that held special significance to him, he shot his chances down in flames by insisting on promoting it while wearing clothes generally seen on women. Legend (doubtlessly incorrectly) has it sales of My Beauty were counted in the hundreds.

In the new century, several “greatest hits” type tours under the Dexys name helped pay the bills and the media decided to grant both the debut Searching For The Young Soul Rebels and Don’t Stand Me Down the genius label they deserve. Come On Eileen, meanwhile, remains the wedding disco standard of all time.

A new album, therefore, was always going to get plenty of attention, especially with Rowland deservedly becoming a icon of English (Irish) eccentricity of sorts. On Some Day I’m Going To Soar, he’s teamed with Mick Talbot (ex-Style Council) and veterans of the Young Soul Rebels line-up Pete Williams and Jimmy Paterson. Talbot was originally in the band long enough to play on a chart-topping single (Geno) back in 1981.

With an album tends to come a tour, with the Manchester stop being at the Bridgewater Hall, more suited to Dexys’ more theatrical stylings. Prior to the band, we’re treated to a burlesque show, to which I was a bit ambivalent. Perhaps that’s just me living in the post-internet age where you can see all manner of naked flesh in a heartbeat, so the idea of mild titillation left me reading a magazine instead. She was a fine looking woman, no doubt, but perhaps I was additionally disconcerted when the act was performed to the theme tune from Perry Mason.

Then the band itself, now called just "Dexys" for some reason, and the larger part of the gig is set out as blasting through the whole album in sequence. The material itself works better on stage: Williams, who played bass on the album, gets someone else to do that job and instead takes the role of Rowland’s foil, reacting to his lyrics and throwing in the odd line/backing vocal himself. It’s all a bit like a show by James Brown or Bruce Springsteen – Williams taking the Bobby Byrd role and Jimmy Paterson being like Clarence Clemons, the “Big Man” whose solos (there’s more on stage than on the album) get some of the biggest receptions of the night.

As a concept, the music works well: middle aged man questions his life, gets infatuated with a lady, proclaims his love, which is then returned. Unfortunately, he then decides he’s “incapable of love” after all, leaving her somewhat annoyed. Nothing too new, perhaps, but Rowland does it well. The whole package may well bring heckles of “self-indulgent”, but Kev has never been one to shy away from such matters: after all, he has that ultra-conviction going back over 30 years from the days he was belting out covers of Northern Soul tunes.

What certainly is self-indulgent is getting a young lady to play his love interest for the music. Although Madeline Hyland may look the part, the bottom line is that she’s not a great singer and it’s just as well the most she has to do is engage in some dialogue.

Once she’s gone, the rest of the album (both on album and stage) does fade away a tad and the night doesn’t pick up again until the encore, when they blast through Tell Me When My Light Turns Green, Come On Eileen and This Is What She’s Like. The second of those was drawn out to perhaps too long a length, and I'd rather have had them give us Let's Make This Precious instead. But nevermind, a great gig and always nice to see a band make an effort with presentation.