Lloyd Cole

The James Cabaret has been around since 1936, apparently. The last time we went there it was called the Front Room, for reasons that aren’t immediately apparent – we saw the John Butler Trio there. Normally a 750 capacity standing venue, for some reason they had decided to make this a sit-down affair: maybe Lloyd Cole judges that his target audience are getting a bit long in the tooth these days? Not something that bothered Nik Kershaw, who is of a similar vintage, when he visited these shores. Seats weren’t allocated so we picked two at the end of a row, to allow easy access to the bar. Then we settled in with a bottle of Tuatara pilsner and a glass of wine.

The show opened with Greg Johnson, a kiwi icon who’s been around for decades; he mostly played a keyboard, but borrowed Lloyd’s guitar for a couple of songs.

Then it was time for the main event. Lloyd Cole performs with an acoustic guitar, and nothing else. Whilst many of the songs were clearly from his post-“famous” period, the style is pretty much unchanged from that we know and love. He played “Rattlesnakes” early, just to give us something recognisable. The other songs are from his collection of 11 solo albums recorded between 1990 and 2013. As he neared the end of the set he threw in a few more of the old classics – Perfect Skin, Lost Weekend and Forest Fire.