Love with Arthur Lee

Liverpool Summer Pops, Wednesday 7th July 2004

One of the expected highlights of this years somewhat disappointing Summer Pops line up, last year promised and delivered us artists of the calibre of Paul Weller, James Brown and Burt Bacarach, this year has delivered the likes of Donny Osmond, Busted and Lulu.

A bit of a dream double header on paper; a quality band of today alongside a great band of yesteryear, sadly the crowd in the half-full arena did not seem to share the enthusiasm of the bands on tonight. The Zutons limbered up with a set comprising of their latest album ‘Who Killed The Zutons’ sadly the apathy of the crowd was apparent during their set as Dave McCabe The Zutons singer implored the audience to at least look interested. They seem to get better and better with each performance and they are certainly a band to see when they are performing in front of their own partisan audience.

Tonight and previous tours have been billed as the Forever Changes tour but Arthur Lee is keen to stress that he has more to offer than a justifiably classic album written and recorded almost thirty five years ago.

Unlike previous tours the band launched into a classic from Forever Changes straight away; ‘A House Is Not a Motel’, which certainly highlights the talents of Baby Lemonade, the new band performing under the guise of the Love brand.

‘Alone Again Or’ was again a highlight of the set as it always is and saw the arrival of the string quartet not for the last time tonight.

Arthur Lee was in prickly mood tonight and was slightly unhappy with the crowds’ demands for songs only from Forever Changes. He stressed hat he was in the process of writing some new material. He was trying to push some of his newer stuff, especially the catchy ‘All I Want Is You’ which is quite a entertaining tune but played in the company of his back catalogue it is obvious that the better stuff was written back in the 60’s.

Lee finally relented and played more tunes form the Forever Changes and other songs from that era. Lee’s mood wasn’t helped by the calls to halt is set at 10.30, the curfew time. This meant that a couple of songs had to be discarded before they finished with ‘She Comes In Colours’.

It was a bit of disappointing night a far cry from their previous gig in Liverpool, last year. No doubt the poor crowd didn’t help the atmosphere or Lee’s not so cheery demeanour.