Triumphant return for rock’s melancholy optimists
When Roger Daltrey initially asked Doves to play their comeback show at the Royal Albert Hall as part of his Teenage Cancer Trust concert series, the Cheshire trio turned him down. After 10 years away it was too much pressure. The venue was too distinguished. The stakes were too high.
But when the next offer to host their comeback show came from the little-known Bearded Theory festival in Derbyshire, Doves changed their mind. They took The Who frontman up on his offer. It was a case of “go big or go home”.
After starting life as dance act Sub Sub – they scored a Top 10 hit in 1993 with Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use) – the Wilmslow school friends re-emerged with guitars in 1998. For a few years at the start of the century, Doves’ comedown soundscapes and euphoric anthems combined melancholy with optimism to such great effect that they were nominated for the Mercury Prize twice in three years, losing out in 2000 to Badly Drawn Boy’s The Hour
of Bewilderbeast, on which they
played.
Doves were the Tramadol Oasis. Their debut album Lost Souls was a post-rave dreamland of woozy, occasionally miserable atmospherics and lyrics about catching the sun before it’s gone. But Doves called it a day after their fourth album, Kingdom
of Rust, in 2009, having grown bored of relentless touring. That album was held off the number one slot by four sales by Lady Gaga.
This Albert Hall show was therefore
always going to be something of a beer-soaked nostalgia wallow for those who scrambled to get tickets. And so it proved.
The glee with which singer/bassist Jimi Goodwin, drummer Andy Williams and his guitarist brother Jez Williams (plus a touring keyboard player) were greeted before opening track Firesuite was palpable.
Goodwin, always a cheerily shambolic presence, reciprocated: he was “humbled” and “blown away” by the response.
The comeback concert proved two things. Firstly, it showed that Doves are a relic of a bygone musical era. That’s no criticism, but here was a band, knocking 50 years old, playing songs in thrall to Joy Division, Northern Soul and rave culture.
I kept thinking of how the music world has changed in their 10-year absence – how streaming has killed the album, and the inexorable rise of urban music.
It seemed like they’d been away for an entire generation rather than just a decade. With new music on the way, I’m not sure Doves will necessarily garner new fans on this comeback. I imagine their days of bothering Lady Gaga over chart dominance are over.
But the second thing the show proved is that Doves are always absorbing and often utterly brilliant. Rise and Caught by the River were swooning, while the crowd obeyed when Goodwin asked them to go “absolutely dementoid” for Pounding.
Despite occasional raggedness in Goodwin’s voice, Doves remain the musical equivalent of a Lowry painting: their songs may appear dour and sullen but there’s life and soul teeming within.
They ended with The Cedar Room, which had fans raise their arms in Liam Gallagher-esque defiance, and an exultant There Goes The Fear, with lyrics that run “You turn around and life’s passed you by”.
Possibly. But with songs this good, it doesn’t really matter.