Crammed into the ABC 2 rather than the main hall itself, Nik Kershaw treated us to a more intimate gig than we expected. This didn’t seem to blunt his enthusiasm — an hour of mixed hits and new material ending with The Riddle, a twenty minute break and then the whole of his first album Human Racing (both sets abounding with beautifully extended guitar solos), followed by a three-song encore, put his time on stage well up to the two hour mark (there was no support act). Can’t knock him for value.
Using The Riddle so early and finishing the Human Racing set with I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me seemed to leave nothing appropriate for the final song, but then he floored the place with a thunderous rendition of Chesney Hawke’s I Am The One And Only, a song that Nik wrote. “I’ve run out of hits, so I’ll play someone else’s,” he quipped.
On the strength of that performance, methinks he should be filling slightly larger venues, should there be a next time.
Rao Dao Zao 