I`ve always liked American singer, songwriter, and guitarist Christopher Cross who gets lumped into the genre of soft rock come yacht rock but to me a great song is a great song despite what genre it`s from and Christpher Cross has certainly made a career from creating plenty of those. I missed him last year when he was special guest to Toto but couldn`t miss this show in Birmingham especially as Squeeze`s Chris Difford was his special guest.
I first saw Squeeze in 1981 when Jools Holland and Gilson Lavis were in the band, Jools left and sadly Gilson passed away last year. I`ve kind of caught up with the guys in the last few years catching shows at the Moseley Folk Festival in Birmingham in 2023, here at Symphony Hall in 2024 and at the Warwick Sessions last year. I`d seen Chris`s writing partner Glenn Tibrook solo many years ago but had never seen Chris solo until this evening. He takes to the stage with fellow Squeeze band member, the wonderfully talented Melvin Duffy who played both pedal steel and guitar this evening.
The wonderful `Take Me, I`m Yours` leads us in before a track from Squeeze`s latest album `Trixies` called `Its Over` is shared for the first time ever, a song that Chris wrote when he was just sixteen. It becomes apparent early on that if Chris hadn’t become a musician or a plumber as his Mom wanted, he could easily be a stand up comedian as he shared numerous anecdotes from his career that were sometimes really close to the knuckle.
The autobiographical `Deptford` mentions living next door to Mark Knopfler, while `Freddie and the Dreamers` tells of an early economy trip to the US and `Cowboys are My Weakness` was allegedly meant for K.D. Lang who rejected it. But it was the Squeeze hits such as `Up The Junction`, `Pulling Mussels (From a Shell)`, `Is That Love`, `Labelled with Love` and `Tempted` that had this enthralled crowd singing along. Mr Difford closed this forty five minute set with a tale about Benny Hill inspiring one of the band`s biggest hits `Cool For Cats` as he shared the story and sang this song. Chris and Melvin were the perfect guest to warm up this crowd and not only leave us with some blistering tunes ringing in our ears but also with a big smile on our faces.
There`s a brief musical intro as Christopher and his seven piece band hit the stage and head straight into the delightfully melodic and uplifting `All Right` and i`m transported back forty years ago to my early twenties. There`s some wonderfully reflective songs like `Never Be the Same` and `I Really Don`t Know Anymore` but it was `Dreamers` a song about social justice with its “I Have a Dream” public speech intro, delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 that really hit home and really expressed how good a songwriter this guy is. There are shouts from the audience but the British accent is almost beyond this American singer.
There`s a long piano intro which leads into `Sailing` one of Mr Cross`s most famous numbers before we enjoy an acoustic section with `Think of Laura` which was written to mourn the death of college student Laura Carter, who was killed by a stray bullet during gunfire in a gang war, `Back of my Mind` and `Simple`.
The singer talks about his daughter attending a history course in Stratford Upon Avon and her tutor dismissing American History as almost non-existent and Christopher sharing his views on Trump.
The home stretch includes `Arthur`s Theme (Best You Can Do )` which is dedicated to his co-writer Bert Bacharach who passed away three years ago, the rhythmic `No Time For Talk` but it’s the final number `Ride Like the Wind` his debut single that really hits home and has everybody up and dancing. It`s a song that i`ve always loved especially the cover by the heavy metal band Saxon.
This was a cracking eighty minutes of thoughtful, reflective, and uplifting melodic rock where this singer did highlight some of his understated guitar skills, this fella played lead guitar for Deep Purple on a night when Ritchie Blackmore fell ill so he`s no slouch. It`s taken me twelve albums before I finally got to see this superb singer songwriter and musician and it was well worth the wait.
