JUSTIN HAYWARD
With The Moody Blues dormant since the retirement of the late Graeme Edge four years ago, any sign of Moodies-related activity is welcome. Following on from bandmate John Lodge’s Classic Moody Blues Hits tour of North America earlier in the year, the band’s singer, Justin Hayward, is wrapping up his own 10-date solo tour in the UK. Speaking in the local paper during the buildup, he talks gratefully of having played music professionally for 55 years and, pertinently, is still engaged in writing new chapters.
A real sense of warmth and fuzziness fills the air as Hayward arrives alone at the White Rock, acoustic guitar in hand, for The Eastern Sun, a solo track from 2013. One by one the other members of a drummerless band, including latterday Moodies bandmate and keyboardist Julie Ragins, guitar wizard Mike Dawes (who opens the show) and flautist Karmen Gould, arrive to join in for Driftwood, Tuesday Afternoon, The Actor and Hope And Pray, a raft of tracks from The Moody Blues songbook. The Actor, with Ragins and Gould providing a delightfully mellifluous and prog-friendly backing, is an absolute joy to hear.
Amazingly, as Hayward croons the fragile The Western Sky at a volume so delicate the opening of a packet of crisps might drown out an important detail, to the consternation of those around him a guy three or four seats down from Prog pulls out his mobile phone and actually calls a cab – there’s always one selfish idiot, isn’t there?
Oblivious to the kerfuffle at the back of the stalls, Hayward continues with another Moodies gem, The Voice, before introducing a first new single in two years. Although recorded earlier this year, Living For Love fits like a comfy old slipper.
Hayward pays tribute to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II (“I remember the coronation!”) and wishes “all the best” to King Charles III. His between-song chatter – which touches upon childhood in Swindon (“that place you drive past on the M4 and never stop, unless you’re interested in the Great Western Railway”), working with tape operators wearing lab coats and visiting the
United States for the first time in 1968 – borders on waffle but contains some nice moments.
Into the home straight, Forever Autumn, the song he sang on Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of War Of The Worlds, is followed by another clutch of Moodies greats: Never Comes The Day, Your Wildest Dreams, Question, the evergreen Nights In White Satin, The Story In Your Eyes and a triumphant I Know You’re Out There Somewhere.
Signing off alone with his own Blue Guitar, Hayward’s assertion that “the music of our youth stays with us all our lives” has never rung more true.
with Bravin, who gets a huge cheer when the bandmembers are introduced.
Longdon is still in the music, and specifically when D’Virgilio comes out stage front with a guitar and announces that he’s going to sing one of his favourite BBT songs, Longdon’s Telling The Bees. “We miss him dearly but he has left us some amazing gifts,” he says, duetting with Sjöblom on keyboards and encouraging us to sing along. ‘Tears of happiness and sadness/
Let them flow.’ And for many, they do.