Humility and gratitude are both qualities getting rarer seemingly by the day, but Hamish Hawk is unafraid to show them. This manifests itself in thanking the audience – a healthy one for a sub-zero Tuesday – on several occasions, both for their enthusiasm and just for being there. At one point he even checks himself, admitting “I don’t want to gush”. It’s that kind of night.
Part of his storytelling ritual is going through previous visits to the area, recalling gigs at the lesser and greater rooms at the Brudenell Social Club, but also in the years before at a place in Halifax so sketchy the evening’s only redeeming feature was that nobody showed up.
Things are different now. Together with a five piece band he’s touring his most complete, compelling album yet in A Firmer Hand, a record full of songs that are tools of confession and occasionally, provocation. Less accessible than its predecessor Angel Numbers, repeated listens however pull the listener into a world starkly painted but eminently human, the music more taut but the edge a necessary one.
Deservedly most of that ground is covered, opener Juliet as Epithet’s low key beginning a chance for the crowd to again embrace this study in monochrome guilt, broken rules and unwise assignations. Any backdrop needs to be sprinkled with characters though, and the inhabitants of the salacious Big Cat Tattoos and the lust filled Machiavelli’s Room are both funny and breathless in equal measure.
Balancing new with old in the set offers no problems. Some of Angel Numbers‘ best material – Think of Us Kissing, Bridget St. John, the simply lovely Rest & Veneers – are deservedly given outings, whilst the award for best song most awkwardly named of course goes to The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973.
There’s time yet for welcome surprises: the steepling, Echo and The Bunnymen-esque Caterpillar finishes the main set, whilst a joyous encore of I Can’t Get No Satisfaction milks Jagger’s beligerence, if not his sensuality.
All hail the thankful then, those in the crowd and those on the stage. All this really means something to Hamish Hawk, and he should really mean something to us.
The Voice Of Unreason 