Gig review: Shakin’ Stevens, ABC

BACK in the 1980s, esteemed pop organ Smash Hits ran a feature on the various changing images/hair colours of the decade’s pop chameleons.

When it came to Shakin’ Stevens, they printed the same photograph four times.

But Shakey’s had the last laugh because, 30 years on, the old Welsh Elvis is the new Cliff Richard, a veritable Peter Pan of pop – thanks to copious quantities of black hair dye – eschewing the 80s nostalgia tour route he could so easily have taken for his own 30th-anniversary tour, in front of a surprisingly generation-spanning audience.

Stripped of the naff 80s production of the recordings, his set was not entirely the cheesefest one might have presumed. You Drive Me Crazy and Green Door were well served by their country/bluegrass-style arrangements, while a cover of Aaron Neville’s bluesy Down Into Muddy Water had an evergreen appeal.

His first hit Hot Dog and a reasonably raucous rendition of This Ole House, to which Shakey shook a limb or two, were not so far from the rockabilly territory being mined somewhere across town the same night by the far trendier Imelda May. It’s Late, however, strayed towards pub rock’n’roll and, in general, his group was less convincing as an all-out rock outfit.

Shakey himself was distinctly shaky on the vocals. While he managed to make a virtue of his gruffer tones on the vintage rock’n’roll numbers, he could not disguise the rot on festive fromage encore Merry Christmas Everyone.

Rating: ***