Review: Paul Heaton, The 8th, Manchester International Festival

I've been to see The Beautiful South once, years ago, in Sheffield. I can remember it being one big singalong with most of the people in the audience knowing every single word Paul Heaton had ever put to music.

That's part of the appeal of some music to me. Like Billy Bragg, Nigel Blackwell and a handful of others, it's not the tunes that get you going, it's the words. I'm not into poetry at all and most classic novels go way over my head, so songwriters are the closest thing I have to great wordsmiths and Paul Heaton is one of the best.

Add that to the fact that he was born in Bromborough (my home town), his Dad was on Tranmere's books at some point (and Liverpool's and Everton's) and that he once turned down a trip to the Milan derby with Loaded magazine so that he could have a drink in The Vine in Liverpool with some of the lads from The Side  and you can see why he's one of my all time heroes.

The only trouble with last night's show was that I couldn't hear the words. You rarely can at a gig I know and I sound like an old fart, but it was kind of important that the vocals were clear last night, with it being the first time The 8th had been performed live. The lyrics were in the programme but I would have needed a torch to follow them in the dark that was the back row of the Albert Pavillion

That was a bit of a shame really because you knew that the show would have involved a good tale, with some really clever observations along the way. I guess I'll have to wait for the song to be available on iTunes to find out exactly how good it was.

But hey, patience got its reward at the end of the show when the ensemble cast belted out a handful of classics from the Paul Heaton back catalogue. I discreetly sang along with Mike Greaves who made a decent fist of Old Red Eyes is Back, despite clearly not knowing the words himself and I was reminded of what a strong singer Jacqui Abbot really is, with her leading on a song or two and pitching in when necessary to help those who knew the tunes less well. Apparently she hasn't sang with her old bandmate for over 10 years. That's a real shame. They really must do it more often.