Gig review: The Bible
IT’S a pleasure to see a band criminally under-recognised in their day getting back together. This was the first of just two shows announced so far by Cambridge-formed late 80s cult sensations The Bible, but the warm reception – particularly from bespectacled men of a certain age, to whom frontman and songwriter Boo Hewerdine was once a Morrissey-esque figure of reverence – suggested there’s appetite for more.
Like their contemporaries The Blue Nile, Lloyd Cole and Deacon Blue, the pop music made by these erstwhile serious young men in long coats was literate, sophisticated, soulful and smooth, in stark contrast to the preeminent sounds of its era. It’s the 25th anniversary of The Bible’s 1986 debut album Walking the Ghost Back Home that heralds their comeback, and it was inevitably tracks from that much-loved record which stood tallest, from the gorgeously shimmering Graceland to Mahalia, with its Steely Dan-indebted smooth sax line.
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Hide AdDuring King Chicago, Hewerdine’s disarming honesty in lines such as “I love you a little bit more than I love myself, and that’s scary” combined with Neill MacColl’s lissom guitar playing painted most vividly the band’s blend of plain-speaking poetry and musical dexterity. (Talk to Me Like) Jackie Kennedy – The Bible’s earliest song, performed as it was written just by Hewerdine on electric guitar and Tony Shepherd on snare drum – and their final single Dreamlife neatly framed two encores, in what hopefully won’t be the last we hear from this welcome reunion.
MALCOLM JACK