Nik Kershaw and his band are currently embarking on a limited run of shows dubbed the “micro anniversary tour” to celebrate “50 years of being a responsible adult”, otherwise known as the “no particular reason we can think of, tour” and “the why the Hell not, tour”. I caught the Bath date of this run at Komedia, and as you may already be able to tell, Nik is notably relaxed and funny guy.
The show started with one warm up act, a solo accoustic singer by the name of Seb Wesson. Wesson a skilled songwriter, did a great job of warming up a packed out room with his soothing, heartfelt original songs such as ‘Take it or leave it’.
Soon after Nik Kershaw and his band took to the stage. Besides Kershaw on a beautiful Sea Foam green PRS guitar his band consists of a second guitarist, 5 string bass player, keyboard and drums. These gentleman jumped straight into the first song ‘Come On Down’ without introduction under moody smoke with dramatic white lighting, giving no insight into the light hearted evening we had ahead of us.
Kershaw cool as ever sporting a Black shirt and shades churned out hit after hit, playing crowd favourite ‘The Riddle’ surprisingly early in the set, clearly confident in the sheer number of hits he’s amassed and quite rightly. With barely a breath between, under softer pink and yellow lighting they ran through the ‘Wide Boy’, ‘Know How’, ‘Cowboys and Indians’, ‘Don Quixote’ and ‘I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On You’ to name but a few.
The thing I look for in every gig is a moment when I am overcome with a love of live music and this show gave me that feeling. The band were tight and humorous, it was clear everyone was enjoying playing, no one on stage took themselves too seriously infact Kershaw gave a shoutout to the Bass players “massive balls”. They finished the set on sing along classic, Chesney Hawks ‘The One And Only’, it is was at this moment I learned that Nik Kershaw wrote this number.
Komedia is an all round beautiful venue, it’s black, red and gilded interior with grand high moulded ceilings boosts two bars with a great selection of drinks. What I found most notable was the attention to care the disabled patrions amongst the crowd recieved from staff, despite it’s many stairs this seems to be a very accessible venue.
Kershaw keeps himself rather busy, I’d like to point fans in the direction of his book, and absolutely recommend catching him live.
