.

Prom No.2: The Northern Soul Prom, Royal Albert Hall, London, July 2023 – Where were we? Rushing back from a brilliant afternoon of DIY punk rock football and a pre season friendly at the delightfully defiant Clapton FC where their rather anarchic Spotted Dog ground was playing host to a Northern invasion of FC United fans on a rare visit to the capital and more of that making friends not millionaires. It wasn’t quite the the days of leaving the Stretty and heading for Wigan and an all nighter but it damn well nearly was, well as close as you’re gonna get to it now…

The second Prom of the season and we weren’t really sure what we were going to go! Surely it can’t work? A celebration, a Northern Soul night at the Royal Albert Hall. Really? How is that going to work? And anyway, this isn’t what the Proms are about. Is it really what we want? The proms are about a night of angular Stravinsky of the glorious flow of Beethoven’s sixth preceded by a premier of some new left-field piece by an exciting new composer (always worth getting there for the full program on a Proms night). I love going to the Proms and I love Northern Soul but Keeping the Faith at the Proms, surely that’s all kinds of wrong?  How are they going to do it? Will there be room to dance, what about the vocals?  We were kind of half expecting to leave early, nah, this is going to be rubbish, if it hadn’t been for that deadly brew of I Could Get Better At Tesco For a quid IPA – really, that’s what it was called, something to do with review it got and really, the review wasn’t that far wrong – if it hadn’t been for a pint or two of that brew and a small slice of the spirit of the Stretty in the Clapton Scaffold along with the positivity of the vocal Clapton following (once a few differences had been ironed out with a joint rendition of that Smiths classic Hang The Tories), if it hadn’t been for that deadly brew we might have just said nah, it’ll never work, let’s call it a day. But then the beauty of proper Proming is that the cheap tickets can only be bought on the day, they are always held back and the vision always was music for the masses, the working classes, it makes perfect sense to follow up a Clapton vs FC United pre season friendly with a rush via the Lizzie like to the second night of the Prom season and some Northern Soul 

 .

The Hall is packed, less reverential that your regular prom crowd, the ritual and the codes pushed to one side (no sign of the Prom charity collectors down the front with their pre-performance sycronised shout out), it does kind of look and feels like the Proms, we’re in definitely in the Albert Hall, there’s Henry looking down, the room is dressed for the Prom season, there’s the orchestra all set out,  and yet even before we start, it sounds different. The crowd don’t sound anything like the hushed crowd of a ‘normal’ proms (and let me say here, if you think the Proms are about that Last Night flag waving jingoistic crap, throw all those ideas in the bin, that last night is a million miles away from the beauty of rest of the season). Will this work? There’s a an ageing soul kid or two dressed like they would have been at the Twisted Wheel or the Wigan Casino, some high-waisters just walked past, a Yorkshire Soul Girl over there in her Brighouse White Rose top, hard to spot the devoted from the curious, the older lady near us tells us she doesn’t really like pop music, she prefers Sibelius and it is awfully loud…

Was it going to work? This is never going to work, what are we going to get? Some kind of instrumental orchestral interpretions of the classics, these things never work. The place is certainly full. packed out. Curator Stuart Maconie does his bit of basic school teacher scene setting and explaining before introducing the orchestra and were off and listening to that sound of the drummer, the heartbeat is up already, hey, this is actually sounding good, the arrangements are sounding immediately right, the singers have it right, it all rather immediately sounds right – no hanging about here, the sound of the MVPs, no time for half measures, in with a big one, turning my heartbeat up, turning my heartbeat up, its getting louder…

.

The arrangements, by Joe Duddell and Fiona Brice, performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra, are spot on from the start, not sure how much of it will be coming over on the radio or how things will sound when the BBC show it on TV but here in warmth of the room it all sounds rather good. Although, does Dobbie Grey’s Out On The Floor feel a little stoggy as second song in? Maybe but it is still sounding good and people are clearly wanting to move their feet, legs are itching to get their kicks, there’s no room to move on the floor, it is working though, bodies are swaying. I guess most of us have never really heard these classics played live in such a big big way and most of the original recordings did have some lush orchestration in there with their cheaply recorded (sometimes muddy, often perfectly so) walls of sound. These arrangements are drawing out the symphonic warmth of the originals, Gone With Wind and Night Owl flow past before Rita and The Tiara’s Gone With the Wind and then the brilliant thing that is Tony Clark’s Landslide lifts the tempo, not that it had dropped that much after that start. There’s a joy starting to flow around the hall, there’s a joy lifting from the floor, reaching up to the posh seats, bet they wish they were down here, still no room to move though, no chance of four steps to the left in here…

We could argue about the playlist until eight in the morning and way beyond the last three, not sure i would have put Hold Back The Night in the set, not sure about that version of Sliced Tomatoes that followed the rather down tempo, if beautifully sung version The Drifter (sung gorgeously by Darrell Smith). Actually I’m listening back to the performance on the BBC Sounds thing a day or so after it all now, and where’s the joy gone? What is it that the BBC manage do to live music? None of the dynamics or the delight, the electricity that was there flowing around the hall aren’t to be found here with this radio recording (and that annoyingly awful cometary after every song, no!), this is sounding very much like a you-really-had-to-be-there thing and we’ve been buzzing off that pure joy of Saturday for the last two days. Okay, it did get a tiny bit flat in the middle of that first set of the night, until that version of Sandi Sheldon’s You’re Gonna Make Me Love You (powerfully sung by Frida Mariama Touray) ignites the room again, those who know it can’t help but sing along, knowing glances shared by smiling strangers, feet are itching to move again, need some room!  

There’s some great vocal performances tonight and they did a damn good job in sorting out those fade out endings that are on almost all of the original records, actually they’ve got the starts just right as well, those starts are vital, that recognisable first ten seconds that got you on the floor back there. And yes, of course they can’t please everyone with the list of songs chosen. Still no room to spin, you can tell some people are really itching to, some in truth probably can’t now, some of us probably never could, the spirit is here though, the joy is in the room, that heartbeat turning up more and more, getting louder, the infection is spreading, the love.

An instrumental Exus Trek kicks off the second part of the evening (traditional proms break), we want to sing it takes two, it is really about the vocals tonight, we’re off again, the evening is really flowing now, the second part of the programme feels a little less tense, any early-performance nerves clearly long gone now, hair let down, the joy – joy really is the word, the weekend working class escape that was the North Soul clubs, that the Northern football grounds were –  If That’s What You wanted gives way to Temptation Calling My Name and that horn section, Natalie Palmer takes us through a stylish What – there’s cheers from the upstairs crowd, can they see something we can’t? Was there a spin down the front? Did someone find some space? Natalie’s performance of The Velvets’ I’ve Got To Fine Me Somebody adds even mote to the electricity that’s flowing around the room, the orchestra are soaring now, this really really is working, the cynical smile is long gone as Frida Mariama Touray leads us through a glowing Better Use Your Head – the extra colour of the arrangements really coming through. It needs to be said again, there really really is a joy flowing around the room, flowing from the floor and up to the posh seats – even the posh seats are up on their feet now. That James Bondish start to Yvonne Baker’s Didn’t Say A Word, a lush lush version, Vula Malinga on lead vocals (they all really deserve a name check, they’re all taking turns leading or adding the glorious layers of backing)  Brenan Reilly leads us through a powerful version of The Carstairs it Really Does Hurt Me Girl before the chill-up-the-spine that is those bells at the start of Edwin Starr’s Time. More horns, more shuffle, these arrangements are so lush, they might be too full bodied for some but to these ears, down here on the floor in front of it all, down in the warmth of the crowd it feels just right, dare I say it sounds perfect? And then…   

And then, that base line, and beware of his promise and things go up yet another notch, and I really hope I’m painting a (pretty) picture here and The Night is turning heads around and there really are tears in the house now, tears and cheers and what a buzz – actually they haven’t quite got that vital bassline right, surely one the best basslines in any song ever, but that’s being way too picky and the joy now is way way (way) up there, and if the day could lest for ever and we know we’ve found so much more that we lost in here and yes! This is just brilliant! There’s spontaneous cheers, hugs, beaning smiles, the whole place is up now, so much emotion, and what a cheer at the end, how  do they follow that?!  How just right was The Night, how can they follow that? Hang on, is that a ghost in the house? Oh yes, we’re motoring now, we’re all in the zone, if you’re not feeling alive in here then you really need to go look for your soul, Frankie Valli followed by  R Dean Taylor’s classic, wow and both pretty much spot on!  

I blame Steve Soul and Richie Mod for all this, that and the LLaingoch Village Hall Youth Club Disco, all the tribes in the house, all waiting for their turn, waiting for their five records, waiting for our turn and some Black Sabbath or Motorhead of maybe some Deep Purple but secretly wanting those five Northern Soul records before the punks got their five and the Teds got pissed off with all the waiting. It was Steve and his dancing that made me dare to go to Wigan that first time after another afternoon on the Stretford End, what ever did happen to Steve Soul? Lot of people reliving lost times in here

After those two big guns of The Night and Ghost we’re (sadly, yet so so joyously) into that three before eight and the traditional end of those all nighters at the Wigan Casino and this really will live long after tonight is all over and I really hope just one tenth of this joy (joy really is the word here, I can’t say it too many times, joy joy joy) comes over on the radio or the telly and I’m pretty sure it won’t.

I really had my doubts, it won’t work, we nearly didn’t turn up. Went to match, shouted ourselves silly with the FC fans at Clapton, a more than fitting way to spend the afternoon before the evening (The Night), a brilliant afternoon and a story for another day and we so nearly thought that will do and surely it won’t be any good, it won’t have spirit, Northern Soul as the proms, nah, don’t be silly, it won’t have the soul – and those three before eight are sending smiles and glances and tears and Time Will Pass You By and nights like this are precious and I’m so so glad we came and this big old world is spinning like a top and joy joy joy! Brilliant.

And just as we’re ready to hug and turn for the exits, well, they had to really, a beautifully motivated Tainted Love kicks in and that handclap and we’re off again with the very very last song and here I am on bended knee and Frank Wilson and the joy notched up even more and Do I love You, indeed I do, and hearts filled with pure delight and the whole place moving and more tears and move great big smiles and more hugs and is it really all over?  And this really really really should not have worked, it was a stupid idea, this is not what the proms are about, this is wrong wrong, so wrong it was just brilliant, even Henry Wood is smiling, the older lady who prefers Sibelius was dancing, there was joy everywhere, 5000 people full of joy…

I don’t know what it will sound like in your homes when they do broadcast it on the telly, but down on the dance floor it was just a brilliant triumph. It was emotional, very very special (and as it was the Proms it was only eight quid to get in if you did the proper Prom thing and paid on the day, see you for Beethoven on Wednesday). What a night, turning the heartbeat up or what! Joy. An exhilarating Joy! (sw)