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   Review: Hugh Cornwell – The Lowry, Salford
Reviewer: Iain Sykes
The Public Reviews Rating: Five out of Five. This is Hugh Cornwell’s first ever visit to The Lowry and he’s impressed. “Nice place” he says as he looks around from the stage of the Quays Theatre, the complex’s smaller theatre, “spacious yet intimate”. In fact, the perfect space for the former Stranglers frontman to play on this tour of solo acoustic and very intimate concerts. Hugh is on good form. His conversation between songs is in the form of anecdotes and stories about each song’s conception or development, which it feels like he could be sharing over a drink with a good mate, even as he worries out loud that he’s chatting way too much. For this tour, Cornwell draws on a vast catalogue of material from the early Stranglers days right up to his yet to be released new album, Totem and Taboo, which he tells us will be released once the required number of pledges from fans has been reached to fund the album. Introducing the new material, which is dropped in throughout the evening, Hugh apologises for its unfamiliarity, expressing his dislike of artists that just play concerts solely consisting of new album songs. Not that he need worry as, in these acoustic versions at least, the new songs complement the old perfectly. He isn’t shy about his past successes and Stranglers hits, Golden Brown and No More Heroes receive the best receptions of the night. Being stripped down to their acoustic bones gives some of the older songs a new angle beyond their original power. Nice and Sleazy for example, he says, has been turned into a “German drinking song” while Golden Brown, he feels, has a mariachi sound to it. His solo work is well represented, especially from his Beyond Elysian Fields album, which contains the largest number of acoustic songs that suit this kind of set. While some singers insist on gimmicks and image of all different kinds to promote themselves, the real star is one who can merely walk on stage, pick up a guitar and proceed to hold an audience in the palm of their hand for two hours. Hugh Cornwell is that man, a singer with the utmost respect for his music and his audience. And the audience repay that respect. The atmosphere in the Quays Theatre is that of a man just picking up his guitar to informally entertain a few friends and his fans listen in rapt attention. As Hugh himself said, it is indeed a “very civilised way to spend a Sunday evening”.
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