Richard Hawley review: Songs of magnificence at the Olympia in Dublin 

Richard Hawley revisited his classic Coles Corner album for a fine gig in Dublin 

A file image of Richard Hawley who played the Olympia in Dublin on Wednesday. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

Richard Hawley, Olympia, Dublin  ★★★★☆

I don’t know what you were doing when you were 16, but Richard Hawley – according to the man himself – was already writing songs as marvellous as Just Like The Rain. The 58-year-old reckons it proves he was always miserable and that tune is also just one of the jewels that adorn 2005’s masterwork, Coles Corner.

Hawley only makes good records but this is one of his great ones and the current tour celebrates its 20th anniversary. Accordingly, the first half of Wednesday night’s show at a properly packed Olympia Theatre in Dublin gave us the record in sequence. The gig opened with the beautiful strains of the title track where his string quartet, squeezed onto the stage with his five-piece band, melded perfectly with the double bass to prop up his velvety baritone. It’s a voice that would make Sinatra sweat.

Further proof of the pulchritudinous of his pipes comes with album centrepiece The Ocean. His singing starts from beneath his boots but halfway through as the strings swirl about him the voice opens up sending it all gloriously widescreen around that majestic central riff as the waves of both the lyrics and the music crash down upon his rapt audience.

But Hawley doesn’t just possess a voice other singers would sacrifice limbs for; he’s also one of those rare guitarists who can both make it howl and add just the right subtle phrase that lifts his already airborne compositions, and he’s helped in no small part by the astonishingly sympathetic playing of his band.

Richard Hawley on stage at the Olympia.

Once the album is finished with a beautiful reading of Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?, a song taught to him by his godfather Joe Cocker — an old mate of his dad’s who also had an eye for his mother — we get several highlights from his other records. The tremendous Tonight The Streets Are Ours is what Morrissey might sound like with a heart, Standing At The Sky’s Edge sports a tectonic tremolo rumble, and the encore’s For Your Lover Give Some Time earns a librarian’s dream of a hush.

Hawley’s story-telling throughout is almost as good as the song-writing. He tells a touching story about passing on that Cocker-taught song to his own kids, and jokes that when Storm Amy hit his beloved Sheffield it caused “millions of pounds worth of improvements”. He also praises his “long-suffering” psychiatric nurse wife who hilariously responds to a new song by asking him what’s for tea?

He plays off the audience, deflecting various declarations of love and one bizarre instruction to pull his socks up. When he says it’s a “joy, pleasure and honour” to play for us, you believe him. Superb, as always.