Seamus Ennis Centre, Co Dublin
Taking time out from writing material for a forthcoming Squeeze album, and flexing his performance muscles for an upcoming Squeeze tour, one of the band’s mainstays has decided to keep his hand in by visiting good small venues around the country.
It’s as much a lesson in stagecraft as business, and if you’re as talented a songwriter as Glenn Tilbrook, then taking care of both, while simultaneously playing to stuffed venues seems a good way to pass the time.
Certainly, you can’t accuse Tilbrook of short-changing his audience; along with Squeeze song-writing partner Chris Difford, he is responsible for some of the best pop songs of the past 30 years.
Indeed, it's barely arguable that the Tilbrook/Difford partnership, throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, took the baton from the likes of Lennon/McCartney and Ray Davies in the 1960s by minting perfect pop songs in the style of the former with the socio-realist kitchen-sink dramas of the latter. Songs such as Goodbye Girl, Up The Junction, Temptedand Labelled With Loveare laced with enough home truths and wonderful melodies to last well into the night. Throw in a performer who can effortlessly cajole laughs from an audience on a very cold night and it's little wonder that Tilbrook's solo gigs – part planned-out strategies, part guerrilla tactics – quickly become the stuff of local hearsay.
He’s also something of a human jukebox, which helps him as a performer not having to restrict his set to just Squeeze songs and (equally as worthwhile) solo material.
Jumping from the likes of Squeeze's 1978 debut single, Take Me I'm Yours, to covers of Jeannie C Riley's Harper Valley PTA,Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Chileand Randy Crawford's One Day I'll Fly Away, to solo tracks such as Hostageand Neptuneand back again to Squeeze's Some Fantastic Placeand The Truth(and much more besides), here is a gent who knows, more than most, the value of the pop song.
