Core magazine

Duke Special
The Leadmill, Sheffield

My girlfriend and I don’t really do the whole Valentine’s thing. No extraordinary shows of emotion from us just because the greetings card industry dictates to us that we should. So we thought it serendipitous that Duke Special, our mutually favourite song-smith ‘du jour’, came to play in our home town on Valentine’s Night. Bedecked with love hearts and red balloons in readiness for the club night following the gig - the Leadmill was a perfect setting to hear his beautiful songs of love and loss.

After a rapturous welcome, Duke and his band took to the stage, followed by silence as he teased us, grinning silently at the mic; those heavy mascara eyes peering out under a tangle of dreadlocks. “Tattoo my heart, so I’ll never let you go…” he began unaccompanied before the band joined in with a Salvation Army swing. The set comprised mainly of Songs from the Deep Forest tracks and I was curious how they would come across played by a four piece outfit, compared to Duke’s solo outings, but the songs retained a primal rawness about them - an urgent vitality that can only be experienced in a live setting.

So sympathetic are Duke’s record label to his artistic leanings, that they released the album in a wooden box set of six heavy vinyl 7 inch singles. Although I have the CD in the car, I much prefer playing the vinyl. Yes, I have to get up every three minutes to change the record, but I find that this rather quaint way of listening to music enjoyable again. It allows each song to live and breathe in its own right, rather than just being another chunk of software on the ipod. This is part of Duke’s appeal: a nod towards ‘the good old days’ of Victorian music halls and vaudeville entertainment. It was heartening to learn that the merchandise stall had completely sold out of Egg Whisk and Cheese Graters, used for percussion by Chip Bailey to great effect on stage. They weren’t selling his Stumpf Fiddle though, a rhythm stick with horns, bells and tin lids attached to it. They’re quite popular on the Minnesota folk scene, apparently.

Duke sings in his native Belfast accent, which gives his songs an honest and graceful air. At times it was possible to hear a pin drop as the hushed crowd hung on his every word, with only gentle piano chords punctuating the silence. My only gripe was with an ignorant couple who insisted on chatting loudly throughout the evening. I don’t understand how anyone could be so disrespectful in an intimate setting like that when everyone else in the room is so obviously enraptured with the music being performed.

Duke explained to us that the last time he played in Sheffield, at the Deep End (a converted swimming pool that is now a live venue pub) he had to wait for the England v Portugal football match to finish before starting his set. The match went to extra time and then penalties, so by the time his set started there was time for just one song and an encore before the curfew curtailed his performance. Perhaps mindful of this, for the last song ‘John Lennon Love’, Duke and the band jumped off the stage and played unplugged in the middle of the audience, who eagerly crowded around singing backing vocals. Like the Pied Piper they led us, from the Steel Stage area into the adjoining room’s dance-floor which was still being prepared for the ensuing club night, and as the bouncers slowly approached the band to ask them to stop playing, they skipped off into the night, leaving their accordion notes hanging in the air amongst the glittering love hearts.

by Neil Gallagher