{"id":637843,"date":"2025-12-17T09:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T09:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/637843\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T09:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T09:41:11","slug":"richard-hawley-live-at-sheffield-city-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/637843\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Hawley Live at Sheffield City Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Hawley Live Review by Rob Johnson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sheffield doesn\u2019t have a president, but if it did, it would probably be Richard Hawley. The former Pulp and Longpigs guitarist has been lamenting, romanticising and chronicling the city his entire life, and the 20th anniversary of his third album, Coles Corner, feels like the perfect opportunity to pause and take stock of his achievements with three sold-out gigs at Sheffield City Hall. <\/p>\n

Set against the backdrop of a huge screen projecting old, black-and-white photographs of Sheffield, and complete with a 10-piece band, it is clear that Hawley has levelled up for these shows in keeping with the majesty of Sheffield City Hall \u2013 a truly beautiful venue. <\/p>\n

Hawley takes to the stage with his trademark quiff resplendent in the cold, December air and flanked by two massive \u2018Welcome to Sheffield\u2019 signs on either side of him. The title track to Coles Corner kicks things off, and what a beautiful song it is. When Hawley croons, \u2018I\u2019m going downtown where there\u2019s music\u2019, the adoring Sheffield crowd can only agree. Loneliness hangs in the air, but at least we are lonely together.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Hawley and his talented band then run through the album with an utterly spellbinding version of \u2018The Ocean\u2019, the highlight. It\u2019s easy to forget in the face of his trademark croon and natural charisma as a frontman that Hawley is first and foremost a guitarist. I\u2019ve seen a lot of guitar players over a lot of years, but I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen a solo as incredible as the one that Sheffield\u2019s favourite son busts out here. The timeless and haunting \u2018Born Under a Bad Sign\u2019 forces a collective sigh from the adoring crowd, before \u2018I Sleep Alone\u2019, written when Hawley was 16, confirms, as he puts it, that he\u2019s always been a \u2018miserable bastard\u2019, before a string-laden rendition of \u2018Tonight\u2019 has a few Yorkshiremen reluctantly wiping their eyes. The Coles Corner section of the evening closes out with a cover of Woody Guthrie\u2019s \u2018Who\u2019s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?\u2019 \u2013 a song that Hawley\u2019s godfather Joe Cocker (yes, that one) used to use as a lullaby to sing him to sleep. It is, of course, enchanting. <\/p>\n

The second part of the set is a run-through of greatest hits and winter warmers. Too grumpy to actually include a Christmas song (and rightly so), it doesn\u2019t matter, because this is winter music \u2013 best enjoyed with night pressing down on the windows, and the sound of the wind howling against the doors. \u2018Tonight the Streets Are Ours\u2019 kicks off the second part of the set and is rapturously received, before the one-two punch of \u2018Don\u2019t Stare at the Sun\u2019 and \u2018Standing at the Sky\u2019s Edge\u2019 really open the evening up. The latter song is proof (if any were needed) that Hawley\u2019s music is more than just a throwback. This is gut-churning, vital music that would be filling arenas had it been written by Queens of the Stone Age or someone else of their ilk. It sounds incredible here. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Open Up Your Door\u2019, a truly beautiful song, builds to an unforgettable crescendo, with the string section (excellent all night), ensuring that the song really soars, before the band closes things out with \u2018For Your Lover Give Some Time\u2019 (dedicated to Hawley\u2019s wife), and traditional set closer, \u2018Heart of Oak\u2019. The latter is one of those songs that every serious music fan should see live at least once before they die. It\u2019s life-affirming. It\u2019s unforgettable. It\u2019s pure pop-perfection. It\u2019s also the perfect set closer. <\/p>\n

As the delighted Sheffield crowd pile out of Sheffield City Hall into the bitter cold, we are all grateful that Richard Willis Hawley keeps finding new ways to redefine longing, heartbreak and nostalgia \u2013 a magical evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Hawley Live Review by Rob Johnson Sheffield doesn\u2019t have a president, but if it did, it would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,45453,6080,196253,184096,1620,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-637843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-live-review","12":"tag-review","13":"tag-richard-hawley","14":"tag-rob-johnson","15":"tag-sheffield","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}