Housemartins 2, Beautiful South 2 - Paul Heaton, Plug Sheffield

Part of the reason was the special guest appearance of the former ‘South’ singer, Jaqui Abbott, she of Rotterdam fame. And it was the same song that immediately followed her introduction on stage; the rendition was unsurprisingly sublime too. Heaton had already sung Old Red Eyes, the second number into his set. The bulk of the solo offering was from the most recent album Acid Country and a forthcoming collection of new songs which he regularly referred to as “Next year’s album”.

As you would expect, the crowd was very much like a room full of football supporters (Heaton is a Sheffield United fan). As they waited for their hero, they chanted his name, hands aloft as if on the kop at a football ground, although it sounded like ‘eton, eton’ .

With him and Abbott on vocals, they were well backed by a three piece, guitar, bass and drums, however a keyboard would have been a welcome enhancement to the sound, especially for the ‘South’ songs.

It was not billed as a Christmas show but it was conducted in a party mood. Housemartins fans would have been delighted with the inclusion of Happy Hour, Build, Me and the Farmer and Caravan of Lov'. The latter two were encores, the Isley Brothers’ tune being the last song of the evening, sung a capella by all five musicians. The first encore, there were two, even included a Clash number, Heaton was clearly enjoying himself. By that time his enthusiasm may have been partly due to the bottle of water that he reached for after each number; its contents may well have been something other than water after all.  

The outstanding moment was the performance of the ‘South’ ballad Dumb featuring Abbott’s delightful counter harmony to Heaton’s main vocal line. He regularly confirmed that she would be heavily involved in ‘next year’s albu’'. It was a subtle move to recruit his former bandmate, even her backing vocals made the sound of this group special. She has a similar style and timbre to Tracy Thorn of Everything But the Girl. Like Thorn she could sing entries from the telephone directory and still make you pay attention.      

As the performance got closer to the curfew time, when the venue became a late night DJ event, he gave his thanks to everyone and in line with the celebratory mood, apologised for being drunk the last time he played the Plug. He said he was so upset about it that if he had been a band he would have split up from himself there and then.

It was not clear if this show was a prelude to a tour, a seasonal celebration or just an opportunity to play live. At the end judging by the jovial atmosphere, it didn’t matter but it was an important reminder of the quality and uniqueness of Heaton’s songwriting.