Ian McNabb

Live at the Southport Arts Centre, Friday 21st April 2006

A Friday night sojourn up the Mersey coast for Ian McNabb as his brief spring acoustic tour calls into the Southport Arts Centre – a suitable night to visit the seaside town on the year’s first spring like day.

What the venue lacked in dynamics tonight’s two-part set more than made up for the lack of rock and roll credentials of the setting. The Arts Centre is a pleasant enough venue – but probably one more suited to academic lectures and the odd amateur dramatics event.

It was a good turn out tonight for Ian. The audience was made up of the usual partisan diehards out in force, all hollering for songs from all points in McNabb’s career. McNabb more than encouraged this participatory heckling.

He seemed a little subdued at the start of the proceedings, but the longer the gig went on he came into his own. Some inspired song selection and a smattering of witty anecdotes made the first part fly by. My favourite tale was the £500 Rickenbacker guitar which is now worth £4,000 – which his Mum implores him to sell because as s says:' Your always complaining your fucking skint.’

The first set had some sort of a set list – with the second half left open to the wishes of the crowd.

One of the many highlights of the night for me was certainly ‘Fire Inside My Soul’. The evenings closer ‘Love Is A Wonderful Colour’ sounded great with the accompaniment of the audience – a tune that more than whetted the appetite for The Icicle Works forthcoming anniversary gigs in October.

The second half saw Ian getting a little bit frustrated by the lack of atmosphere in the venue. He gently goaded a majority of the crowd from their seats to fill the vast space between the seats and the stage. The crowd in turn were treated to a rock-n-roll medley, with one of the crowd who had left his seats treating the crowd to a stunning display of dad dancing.

Another great McNabb gig. As you would come to expect no one gig is like the other, hence the anticipation for McNabb’s forthcoming gigs later on in the year.