Live review: Two titans of independent music collide, as Edwyn Collins plays the Brudenell Social Club
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(Credit: Spotify)
There aren’t many musicians who could compel me to bring a marker pen and a battered old seven-inch single to a gig, in the vain hopes of getting the deteriorating picture sleeve marked with an autograph, but Edwyn Collins is one of those musicians.
After all, without the trailblazing sounds of Orange Juice, the landscape of independent music would be virtually unrecognisable. Similarly, the landscape of independent music in Leeds would be decimated without the richly textured walls of the Brudenell Social Club – an essential cornerstone for every self-respecting music fan from West Yorkshire and beyond. When these two titans of independent music collided on a busy Friday night, then, the results were inevitably spectacular.
One of the early stops on Collins’ current tour, the show at Brudenell was principally in celebration of the indie progenitor’s latest record, Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation, which reaffirmed the songwriter’s ever-expanding repertoire of sound when it hit the airwaves earlier this year. From soul to country, gospel, R&B, and his roots in old-school indie rock, the album is as endearingly eclectic as Collins himself, and the new songs included on the setlist at Brudenell formed some of the major highlights.
Around the time of that album release, I had the privilege of speaking with Collins, alongside his wife and longtime collaborator Grace Maxwell. During that conversation, a recurring topic was that of the songwriter’s health, after suffering from two cerebral haemorrhages back in 2005.
Maxwell told me how Collins was forced to re-learn “everything: memory, speech, reading and writing,” and, 20 years later, the performer’s health difficulties were evident at Brudenell. When he emerged onto stage – to the soundtrack of Leeds’ very own Mekons, harking back to his days as a youthful punk revolutionary – he used a cane to support himself, his inter-song banter was short but sweet, and he spent the majority of the set singing from a chair.
Still, none of that impacted his performance, and, in fact, you certainly got the sense that it was the music that was keeping Collins going. As he proudly told me in that interview, “Since my stroke and six months in hospital, I have made five albums.” His voice remains as distinctive and powerful as ever, albeit with the added gravel of a life well-lived, and rattling through a set composed of new additions, old favourites, and cult classics, it was easy to get whisked away in his performance.
Expectedly, the moments when Collins reverted back to his Orange Juice days, performing the likes of ‘Dying Day’, ‘Consolation Prize’, ‘Falling and Laughing’, and, of course, ‘Rip It Up’, received the most rapturous receptions from the sold-out crowd in Leeds. With age, many of those iconic tracks seem to have taken on entirely new meanings; even the youthfully rebellious anthem of ‘Rip It Up’ somehow seems far more poignant in the light of modernity.
Aside from those journeys back to the golden age of Scottish indie, another stand-out moment came when Collins brought out his son, William, to share vocals on one track. The pair created a notably wholesome mid-set interlude, with the pride beaming off the songwriter throughout the duet.
“You’re on one tonight,” William said to his father upon coming out onto the stage, following Collins’ repeated attempts not to swear in between songs, followed invariably by a chorus of expletives. That pre-song chart also brought about the revelation that Collins’ Brudenell pie of choice is steak and stilton – who would have thought?
Following on from ‘Rip It Up’, later in the set, Collins rose from his chair, performing the final few songs of the main set, including his smash-hit ‘A Girl Like You’ while standing, with the help of his cane. To his credit, though, after shuffling off stage he soon returned for an extensive encore of fan favourites, including the fantastically emotive ‘Low Expectations’, and the triumphant closer, ‘Blue Boy’, before sending the elated and – if we’re being honest – quite emotional hordes back out into the Autumnal bite of Hyde Park.
In the end, my copy of ‘Rip It Up’ went unsigned, but I couldn’t care less, as the joy of witnessing those songs live and in the flesh will live on in my memory far longer than a Sharpie-d signature on a record sleeve.
Orange Juice might have had their day over 40 years ago, but Edwyn Collins still stands tall among the most important, influential, and tirelessly independent figures out there. Not only did his Friday night performance at Brudenell cement all of that, but it also presented an artist for whom musical expression is – and always has been – the answer to everything. They don’t make them like that anymore.
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