We're not doing a Best Gig of the Year chart on theartsdesk but if we did succumb to live listomania an unforgettable night in May would be certain to figure close to the top. One of pop's most mercurial figures, Kevin Rowland appeared on stage at the Shepherds Bush Empire and, more than three decades on from his band's incendiary beginnings, delivered the performance of a lifetime.
Dexy's Shepherds Bush gig reinterpreted and revisited some of the band's early classics, but what was even more striking was that the new album, One Day I'm Going to Soar, performed in its entirety, more than held its own alongside the likes of "Come On Eileen" and "Tell Me When My Light Turns Green". From the opening celtic aria of "Now" to the closing reverie of acceptance "It's OK John Joe" via pungent whiffs of Willie Mitchell-era Al Green and Van Morrison, this is a magnificent album, a truly worthy successor to 1985's Don't Stand Me Down, which was seen as Rowland's button down-shirted folly at the time but is now finally becoming accepted as a groundbreaking classic.
In a year when Eighties throwbacks from Madness to Paul Weller revealed that they still had it in them to transcend the nostalgia gravy train, Rowland was ahead of the pack with this autobiographical/confessional voyage around his middle-aged psyche. One Day... finds the star going through the emotional wringer, exploring his troubled, turbulent past on "Lost", celebrating the elusive, magnetic wonders of femininity on "She Got a Wiggle" before concluding that he is "Incapable of Love". Listened to in one sitting this sounds like a hit West End show begging to be produced that could knock Viva Forever! for six. Lush strings, honking brass, vocal interplay, knockout pop hooks, rootlessness, anguish by the bucketload. It was good to have the old eccentric back.
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Watch Dexys perform "Incapable of Love"
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