Oh, I just don’t know where to begin…Accidents Will Happen. In late 2018, this venue played host to the early dates of an Elvis Costello tour which didn’t get much further. He was diagnosed with a form of prostate cancer and despite some lurid headlines, he recovered and here he is back treading the boards many, many years after angry young manhood.

So it seems a little impolite to, well…I dunno.

The support act kind of underlined the problem here. Singer/songwriter Ian Prowse was very hale, hearty, full of verve, vigour and twinkle, a combination of scouse/Irish wit and charm and poppiness. Clearly thrilled to be playing such a big venue with such a ‘name’ he claimed his eight-year-old daughter came out to see him in Liverpool on the first night of the tour; and that was ‘the first time she’d seen him’ which I don’t think is quite what he meant. He also offered to buy everybody a drink if they met him at the merch stand after his set…careful, Ian. Last time one of our lot made a similar claim it cost me thousands. Seriously though he was very listenable as were his fellow troubadours but the lack of a bass guitar can very rarely be compensated for by a keyboard, I reckon. The final song in the set, “Does This Train Stop on Merseyside” is a bit of a stonker as well. Keep eyes and ears open for Ian Prowse. A good listen.

Elvis, on the other hand…the tour is called Just Trust 2020, and we kick off with a ‘sighter’ from the ’81 ‘Trust’ album, “Strict Time”. I usually allow bands one or two to get settled and to let any gremlins work their way out so we won’t dwell on this one much, followed by “Clubland” and “Greenshirt” which, although intense seemed to be pretty much all over the place mix-wise. I know the venue has a bit of a reputation for wayward sound but this was a really wild ride, a sort of rumbling, grumbling mess. It seemed to these ears that the opposite of what should have been the case was the truth; they were playing like they’d only just met. And with former Attractions Steve Naïve on keyboards (lots of them) and Pete Thomas on drums and with a settled line-up in the Imposters, this took me rather by surprise.

And come the first of the ‘Hits’, the towering majesty of “Accidents Will Happen”, another problem seems to emerge. Occasionally in later life, singers will not be able to hit particular notes. But this doesn’t seem to be the problem here…his vocal range still seems to be there…but the timing is all over the place and sometimes he just seems to be ‘chasing after’ the song; which is a problem for the sharp, angular, quick-fire demands of many of his older hits. His singers/dancers throw themselves about all over the place to give the impression of concerted, rhythmic responses to the music, but they can’t throw me off the scent. I dig in for an evening of irregular but profound wincing. Great, great song, though.

And then “Better Watch Your Step” and a clutch of others…but I’m SO distracted by now. It isn’t just the timing…he’s Very Flat on occasion…then he’ll throw in one of those soooo Elvis vocal trills and you’ll forgive him…and then for the next 30 seconds he sounds like he’s in the wrong key…the mix is beyond muddy and…I’m not sure he can actually hear himself. Can he hear himself?

“I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea”. Love the song. She’s last year’s model. It’s a killer. Band layer it intensely but he’s chasing the song again…why? I can’t sing but I could probably read the lyrics so they’d actually ‘fit’ the song… all over the place…

…into one for the 2018 album “Suspect My Tears” and possibly because it was written when he was an older man, he does actually get this one to ‘fit’ and glory be, the mix slowly starts to get a bit tighter and more ‘approachable’. After which I’m treated to Elvis telling me he hates me in “Radio Radio” complete with bonkers ‘Farfisa’-style organ and intense and angst-filled playlist envy. Sorry Elvis. Just not radio-friendly, that one.

“Watching the Detectives” is, though. Backlit in eerie green, Costello as ‘spook’ comes to the fore and, at this juncture, it is important I mention the guitar playing. His various ancient and weird-looking guitars and barrage of foot pedals are no doubt very necessary for despite the barrage of keyboards Steve Nieve bounces around behind, there is only one guitarist and it is EC. And the guitar sound is universally excellent, very subtle and supple where required, very sharp and incisive in ways which the interesting but wayward voice now seems less than.

Sitting down at the piano we get the ‘country’ section of the show, including a quite rambling and off-key “Good Year for the Roses”. Always a broken heart/broken voice job, this seriously pushes the boundaries on that particular concept.

From that to another from the 2018 album “Look Now”, “Burnt Sugar is so Bitter” a song co-written by Carole King and this is a right old work-out on a song which tells one of the oldest stories in songwriting in a typically direct way. This worked really well, Steve Nieve’s rattling, empty ‘ice rink’ organ sound giving a hollow, almost ‘Northern Soul’ feel. And speaking of which…”High Fidelity”, a hit from the ‘soul’ album “Get Happy”, which once again, seems to leave his voice behind. Otherwise, just great. But…

“A Whisper to a Scream” jerks us back again to “Trust” and it is an intense delivery, which then melts in to the sublime “Alison” from the first album recorded for about six quid in 1976/7 depending on who you talk to. This is gorgeous and even though the voice does that wandering thing again there are moments within this when all is forgiven, just to hear it ‘live’ again; especially when that folds seamlessly into a marriage with Motown beauty “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me”. Every tune is working to a crescendo now and it would be spectacularly unfair to point out that despite the compromising of songs by a meandering voice, the audience are really warming to this and 80’s FM radio A-lister “Every Day I Write The Book” arrives right on cue and as described in the brochure.

And then “Pump it Up” nearly blows the roof off the place. At the end of it, this guy is a showman. Nobody is going to leave this venue feeling like they’ve been short-changed, I will say that much. And as is the current vogue for encore avoidance, the band stay on the stage and soak up well-deserved applause for a strong and professionally-delivered set. Not their fault the old lad’s struggling to hold a tune on occasion now.

And our final tunes for the night are the “Give Peace a Chance” section of the show and who can blame him? Certainly not I when this commences with “Shipbuilding”. Written by Costello and long-time Madness producer Clive Langer, I have to say I FAR prefer Robert Wyatt’s tremulous, fragile version but I’m here tonight and I’ll take this….but he’s off wandering again and he can’t point at not being able to live with the pace of the song here…and it’s all a bit so-so until he finishes the song on a shimmering, jazzy ‘When we could be diving for pearls’ which just seems to hang in the air and really does force listeners to face the compromises we make with the world in order to be ‘of’ the world.

Which, of course, rumbles straight into a spirited, very ‘dashing’ rock ‘n’ roll version of “Oliver’s Army” which ‘only’ got to Number 2, combining fairly ‘confrontational’ lyrics with the sort of piano that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on an Abba single. Part of our ‘Should have got to number 1; God, where were you?’ club repertoire, anyone would have been excused for thinking that was that, as it could well have been, but pacifist’s corner ended very appropriately and rather touchingly with Brinsley Schwarz’s “What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” and that was indeed it, standing ovations all round the crowd no doubt shuffling off into a cold night warmed to the cockles by the memory of familiar tunes played stirringly….and how many of them would recall great acres of vocal creakiness the following morning?

Absolutely well worth going to see but an increasingly flawed masterpiece as the vocals struggle to live with the songs he’s created, I’d like to think he was throwing stuff about when he got off stage because he couldn’t hear what was going on or he’d just had an ‘off night’. But. Maybe it is Twilight Time.

The things we do for love?

Almost, but not quite.

Mrs. J is extremely partial to the velvet vocals of the Lighthouses and even though I cannot pretend to be a diehard fan I know an airplay tune when I hear one. My musings at the end of my recent review of an Al Stewart gig where I briefly allowed myself to consider how much brass the aforementioned’s “Year of the Cat” has made me, personally, over the years shrinks into complete insignificance compared to the recorded output of these guys.

I’ll have made more out of these than The Beatles, The Stones and The Who put together, and then some, and it is, of course, mutual. The Lighthouses have, or had, that uncanny knack. You could programme them anywhere, anytime, as often as you like and nobody is ‘tuning out’.

And therein lies the reason for my disquiet and sense of apprehension upfront of tonight’s gig. I really WANT to like them. And in this sort of circumstance you either get affirmation or very real disappointment. I am very worried that the crystal recorded quality of these songs as finished productions won’t cut it, live, in a largish, seated and rather soul-less theatre.

Well, let’s see…..a very pleasant curry upfront certainly meant I was very much ‘in the mood’ as support act Georgie wandered onto the stage. She’s a local lass, apparently, and this is the first night on the tour she can sleep in her own bed, she tells us. A solo singer/songwriter and tidy guitar/keyboard player, she does her stuff to an audience who are somewhere between polite and appreciative. She’s got a couple of decent songs, as well, which she wisely saves for late on in her set. Vocally, a bit like Sandy Thom meets k.d. lang in Nottingham. Excellent pitch, but there’s a lot of her about. Needs a ‘killer’ tune to break out and so far I don’t hear one, pleasant enough a listen though she is.

To The Lighthouse. Well, not exactly, yet and we’re given a time-consuming photograph backdrop ‘scene set’ to a sort of audio ‘drone’ which for me outstays a welcome by some considerable time. On they come, finally and serve up “Salvation”, a new one, as a set opener and it is your classic set opener, nothing more, nothing less, but the sound is muddy and Tunde Baiyewu’s vocals are struggling to be heard. This is followed by a mid-paced chugger with tidy Stevie Wonderesque keyboard tricks from Paul Tucker on “Blue Sky In Your Head”.

An early pearl is the gorgeous “Loving Every Minute” which is severely compromised by the backing singer just seeming ‘off’ somehow, Didn’t sound right to me, but let’s stay with the programme……

I’m sure the Lighthouses mean to be sincere on the inter-song raps, but they do really overcook it at times, with stories of raising kids and all that. So much so that the lead up to ”Put My Heart on You” doesn’t exactly have the desired effect on me.

By now, I will admit to feeling mildly irritated rather than entertained so when they kick into “Lifted” with the instantly recognisable Spanish guitar figure at the start, it is something of a relief. ‘I know what you’ve come for’, says the singer and he’s right, because as the night passes it becomes clear to me that these guys had excellent A and R and record company support. They absolutely picked the best songs as singles. Sadly, though, the hits do scream ‘HHIIIIITTTT!!’ at you extremely loudly so I don’t think it was a difficult job for the A and R bod to go ‘That’s the single’. And it isn’t just familiarity.

“Lifted” is a full-on radio singalong tune any day of the week. Nobody switches this off, ever. It does, indeed, ‘Lift’, and, to be fair, the audience are up on their feet for the first time. BUT – and unfortunately…….it doesn’t seem to ‘work’ live. I mean yes, everybody is up etc etc. but……in the cruel lights of the Concert Hall, the song is exposed for the one-line hook it pretty much is. The ‘trucker’s gear change’, the little ‘breakdowns’ in the song, all beautifully locked in by the studio with all the trickery a decent producer can bring to bear, are laid bare by the live performance. It’s just a bloke walking around the stage bleating one word, pretty much repeatedly. And “Run”, which follows, is breathtakingly ordinary.

“Raincloud” is a great song, though, and always was a bit of a fave of mine for coming out of an ad break with. You don’t have to say anything, the powerful piano shapes along with slightly eccentric percussion tricks, a bit off the beat, just draw you in and the chorus, combined with the Gil Scott-Heron style instrumental break are a delight.

Which is a shame, really as we lose the piano figure and the subtlety in percussion in the swirling, slightly mad, pseudo-Gothicky mix the whole thing seems to be wrapped in.

“Ocean Drive” is a really transcendental summer radio tune. About as close to a British Brian Wilson moment as you’re going to get, this one is pure escapist fantasy. We all know life isn’t like this but for two and a half minutes or so, most of us are prepared to suspend disbelief; and they do pretty much nail this. And “Lost In Space” is similarly such a plaintive radio-friendly tune; but tonight there just isn’t enough ‘Space’ for Tundi Baiyewu’s voice to touch and warm the listener; it is just squeezed too much by everything else that’s going on. And despite the warm accolades for the rhythm section from the two main Lighthouses, I thought they were that unforgiveable sin for a rhythm section; they were obtrusive, often as a deep, vibrating rumble, all sound and fury, signifying nothing. And completely at odds with the delicacy and lightness of the songs themselves.

“Who Gonna Save Me Now… by now, I am starting to feel uncomfortable. Another ‘ordinary’ tune, as is “Clouds”, but of course they have a set saver in “High”, which has graced many a person’s wedding/funeral/fave playlist, etc, etc and really you can’t go wrong with it…but once again, in a live format, those ‘trucker’s gear changes’ really do grate.

They encore with “Street Lights in the Rain” and “Free” and “One” but by now I have lost all patience with them. They are falling over themselves to congratulate the audience on their good taste, especially Paul Tucker, who is nobody’s idea of Mr. Showbiz and really, is best just not saying anything.

So, by the time we stream out onto the pavement, I am at serious odds with most of the audience. They feel ‘Lifted’, I feel like I’ve been resprayed magnolia. And my worst fears are confirmed. Clever though some of the songs are as studio confections, they do not translate that well into a live setting. The songs that were hits were hits for a reason. And their medium is FM (and, no doubt, digital) radio. They are best heard once every six hours or so…..or you do start to feel slightly….magnolia.

But the audience loved them, and the body of work is there, and we have done each other a lot of good over the years, so I’m going as far as 3 stars. But I don’t feel good about it.