Never mind the Buzzcocks or Oasis. Manchester’s finest are 10cc
10cc
New Theatre, Oxford
Touring Sep 20 to Nov 4
★★★★★
Vampire Weekend
Only God Was Above Us
Out Friday
★★★★★
If you were trying to name Liverpool’s greatest band, it wouldn’t take long. Manchester, though, is another matter (assuming we rule out the Bee Gees, who spent only three years there). Is it Joy Division or New Order, Buzzcocks or The Fall, The Stone Roses or Elbow, The Hollies, Oasis or The Smiths? Legends, the lot of them, but my answer might well be none of the above. Let’s hear it for 10cc.
Pop and rock, art and soul – they could do it all, often in the same song. Where most bands have one or two songwriters, this halfforgotten quartet had four.
Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart brought so much craftsmanship that Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were free to add a fearless eccentricity. One of their album tracks, still on the set list, is Clockwork Creep, a conversation between an aeroplane and a bomb.
It all ended in tears, as the best things often do. Today’s version of 10cc is just Gouldman, now 77, plus four gifted sidemen, with Godley popping up on video and occasionally in person. But it’s enough because the songs still glow with a playful intelligence.
Life, they assured us, is a minestrone, and so is 10cc’s oeuvre. Feel The Benefit could be the follow-up to Hey Jude, Good Morning Judge is close to ZZ Top, Dreadlock Holiday is halfway from The Police to The Scaffold, and Silly Love is Pink Floyd with a sense of the ridiculous.
From Art For Art’s Sake to The Things We Do For Love, there’s energy in every line. These musicians do it justice: Rick Fenn on lead guitar and Paul Burgess on drums have been there since the 1970s. When they start a clapalong, even the crowd is tight.
The arrangements are a masterclass in making the backing vocals sing. While the lead keeps changing hands – Gouldman taking the low notes, Iain Hornal the high ones – the harmonies are uniformly delicious. It’s like watching a barbershop quartet with a rock band attached.
This tour has done so well that, after taking it round America, 10cc will do another one here in the autumn. Next year their best-loved album, The Original Soundtrack, turns 50. It feels as if their time has come again.
Back in the present, the album of the week comes from Vampire Weekend. It’s a return to their signature sound: chiming hooks, ramshackle rhythms, African guitars, studenty lyrics and Ezra Koenig’s vocals, which are clammy but nice. He’s dextrous too, able to switch in a second from detached observation to passionate engagement. Maybe he’s been listening to 10cc.