“Sorry, mate. I don’t have your name on the list.”
The words no reviewer wants to hear. I ask the man holding the clipboard to check again; still no joy. I explain that I’m here to review Tom Hickcox, and show him the email from Gigslutz live reviews editor, Dan Bull, along with the trail of correspondence with the artist’s PR confirming the place on the guest list.
“Sorry, mate. I can’t let you in.”
I traipse back down the stairs to the bar area, where a man wearing a baseball cap is playing an acoustic version of Sweet Child O’Mine that makes me question why guitars aren’t licensed the way guns are. I take a seat and wonder whether he’s going to play the solo, but before I find out, the guy with the clipboard reappears and beckons me upstairs. I’m going to the ball after all.
The Hope is a small, intimate venue; bigger than your living room, but not quite large enough to be a hall. I arrive in time to catch solo support act Ellie Ford, a Brighton local who sings and plays guitar like the love child of Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake. With the addition of a harp (which, in case you’re wondering is a very fine combination). Despite a wail of feedback mid-song that causes half of those present to momentarily lose their hearing, Ellie retains her composure and plays a set of stripped-back, ethereal folk songs that suggests she won’t be second on the bill at The Hope for too much longer.
Tom Hickox ambles onto the stage looking hirsute and rather dapper in his three-piece suit. Tonight he’s sans band and accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Justin Quinn, who provides the perfect foil to the singer’s haunting baritone and piano. They begin with ‘Angel Of The North’, the tender ballad that also opens debut album War, Peace and Diplomacy. Tonight, stripped of the record’s lush string arrangements, the combination of slide guitar and piano reveal the naked beauty of these songs. “This is a song of hopes and dreams… dashed off the rocks of reality,” says Tom before ‘The Pretty Pride Of Russia’ – the heart-breaking tale of a young woman headed for London who ends up working as a prostitute. It’s clear we’re in the presence of an artist at the top of their game; two songs in and already the audience is in the palm of his hand.
Tom Hickox has been compared to fellow baritone singer-songwriters such as Nick Cave, Scott Walker and Leonard Cohen, and it’s easy to see why he’s held in such high regard. His songs have a similar tendency to get under the listener’s skin from the off, yet contain enough layers to reveal something new each time they’re revisited. ‘White Roses Red’ creeps along with menace and purpose, before the soaring vocal lifts the song to a crescendo that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. Before ‘Out Of The War Zone’, Tom thanks Richard Hawley and his band for their contribution to his album, and tells the audience about a night on the town where he was introduced to the wonders of drinking Guinness by the Sheffield crooner (another flattering comparison).
The highlight of the evening arrives with ‘The Lisbon Maru’, the story of an old man whose tale of surviving the sinking of a floating Japanese P.O.W. ship during World War II was dismissed for years by pub locals as the ramblings of a drunk, until he was tracked down by a broadsheet journalist and finally vindicated. To round off the evening we’re treated to covers of PJ Harvey’s ‘On Battleship Hill’, Eels’ ‘Railroad Man’ and an enchanting version of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ (written for Peggy Seeger, made famous by Roberta Flack, and decades later butchered by The X Factor alumnus Leona Lewis). Performance over, Tom lingers to chat to members of the audience, including a reunion with a childhood friend that’s as touching as the songs that have gone before. Catch this rare and brilliant song-writer at intimate venues like The Hope while you can.
Paul Sng
@sng_paul
Paul Sng
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