It is an absolute pleasure and something of a relief to see and hear Michael Head before us tonight, looking and sounding so well. Having seen the Liverpool songwriter with Shack at the Cockpit in Leeds more than 20 years ago and given his well-documented struggles with substance misuse both before and since that show it is a reassuringly pleasant surprise to find he has not gone the same way as that now sadly defunct music venue.
Having already beaten heroin addiction not once but twice, Michael Head then descended back into heavy drinking. But he is now clean, a sobriety and stability reflected in bottles of Heineken 00 and Birra Moretti Zero on the band’s rider and him having produced one of 2024’s albums of the year. Loophole by Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band affirms that earlier excess had clearly not diminished Head’s songwriting ability.
And having negotiated their way safely past the venue’s festive inflatable dinosaur and sundry other seasonal decorations, it is straight to that record Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band go tonight. The chiming chords of ‘A Ricochet Moment’ reverberate around a packed Crescent, the concert like most other dates on this tour having long since sold out.
‘Ciao Ciao Bambino’ from the same record and a song that provides the title of Head’s forthcoming autobiography quickly follows suit, lending yet further credence to why all those years ago the cover of the NME in 1999 had proclaimed that Head was “our greatest songwriter.” A quarter of a century later he has not lost any of that unerring ability to pen a classic pop tune.
The first half of this brilliant concert draws its material entirely from Loophole and its equally superb predecessor, 2022’s Dear Scott. One cracking song just segues seamlessly into another as Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band quickly shift through the emotional gears from the cracked splendour of ‘Broken Beauty’ to the gorgeous immediacy of ‘You Smiled at Me.’
Michael Head then turns back time, first returning to ‘Streets of Kenny’ – referencing the Kensington estate in Liverpool where he had grown up – and then two songs later, ‘Comedy.’ He dedicates the latter to “all of the believers,” those who had stuck with him and his music through what have clearly been often turbulent times. As the beautifully bruised guitar-pop of ‘Comedy’ draws to a close a voice in the crowd can be heard to say, “the best song that Oasis never wrote.”
Both songs appear on Shack’s 1999 masterpiece HMS Fable, and it is another Shack classic – this time a similarly memorable ‘Meant to Be’ – that brings this wonderful performance to a triumphant close. It is a heartwarming lesson in songwriting and survival.
There is still time, though, for Michael Head and his truly excellent Red Elastic Band to return for a joyfully linear psychedelic waltz through Love’s ‘A House is Not a Motel,’ no doubt rekindling fond memories of when Shack supported Arthur Lee and Love on some UK dates back in 1992.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band at The Crescent in York
