Classics and a few surprises as Steve Harley wows his audience

“I am a 70s rock star,” Steve Harley said from his Portsmouth stage. “Why am I talking to you about grandchildren?”

Ah, but the decades certainly haven’t wearied him, despite the crutch which helped him onto the stage.

The Cockney rebel is as timeless as the great classics he delivered.

Inevitably, we finished with Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me), a song as fresh as ever as it gets ever closer to its half-century.

But also in the mix was a fabulous take on Sebastian on this acoustic night.

Maybe it was Best Years of Our Lives was the night’s highlight, though. That tragic/magic rhyme still sends a shiver. The power of the song is phenomenal.

Fabulous too was the night’s opener, a Love, Compared With You with a newly composed third verse, one of the songs he recorded for the all-acoustic CD Uncovered, his “new” two-year-old album which came out just before the “door slammed shut” in March 2020.

So plenty of Harley originals.

But a huge part of the night, maybe the icing on the cake, were the unexpected “interpretations” (Steve doesn’t do “covers”). And as he stresses, there is absolutely no point doing them unless you do something different – just as he did tonight.

Bowie’s Absolute Beginners, McCartney’s I’ve Just Seen A Face and The Stones’ Out Of Time (odd that he did it just as The Stones themselves are rediscovering the track) were terrific one and all on a night of dazzling musicianship, a few surprises and plenty of happy memories, mixed up with plenty of Harley chat.

One member of the audience apparently came all the way from Western Australia especially. She certainly won’t have been disappointed.