Dressed all in white, Lloyd Cole walked onstage and commenced the show without a word performing 'Don't Look Back'.
This song – taken from arguably his most well-known album, 1990’s self-titled debut (following the dissolution of his band The Commotions) – seems an appropriate a song as any to begin with and sets the lyrical tone for the next couple of hours. In the break between this and the next song he comments: "I have a special announcement. I'm sick. It's going to be a lot of experimenting," but we are all fans here and I don't think anyone is all that worried this early on. What follows is not at all anything that Lloyd needs to be apologetic for.
Given this warning, the show is made all the more intimate and personal, and at times the audience give a feeling of being there more for Lloyd than themselves.
Even though this has been billed as the 'On Pain' tour, it is more a retrospective show with only two songs from the latest album being performed amongst a fair selection of songs across Lloyd's near forty-year career; with the lyrical content of many songs taking on a different meaning in this context or maybe this was how they were always intended.
At 62, Lloyd doesn't look that old, but he makes you feel he is so much older, the self-deprecating comments and asides, the lyrical content (that goes as far back as the '80s and early '90s – even then he was writing as though he was already passed it and now 30 years on he has actually grown into it).
Following 'Trigger Happy', he comments: "I wrote that song when my oldest boy was one year old. He's now 30." He then introduces 'On Pain' as "very much in its infancy". Announcing "here's a lovely song from my childhood," he covers David Bowie's 'Can You Hear Me' from 1975, adding "when I was 14".
He then announces: "If you've just arrived, you’re just in time," before a very different version of 'Rattlesnakes'. Along with this and other Commotions songs played later ('Brand New Friend', 'Perfect Skin'), it comes to mind what we are experiencing is an alternate Lloyd Cole, recontextualised as a country-folk troubadour and his songs almost seem like cover versions.
Just over halfway through a first set, during which he clarifies he is his own support act, he hits his stride with 'Pay For It'. "I wrote that when I was at the height of my ability in setting the word babe in a song. That was 1992. I was in New York at the time," and recalls record company comments that he was overusing the term 'babe' with which he has retrospectively come to agree with.
'My Other Life' stands out lyrically, setting a crime scene during which Lloyd sings: "Welcome to my made for TV movie," then afterwards asks, "You can all relate to that, can't you?".
After 'Undressed', from his post-Commotions 1990 self-titled solo debut he comments, "any reference to me being naked in that song. . ." was in 1989 then follows it with the self-referential, autobiography of 'Tried To Rock', a recollection of circumstances related to that former album. "There's a guitar solo in here," and then he sings it, the song ending with the further self-deprecating lyric, 'I guess I'm glad I failed'. The poetic alliteration of 'The Afterlife' brings his own support slot to a close.
Following a short break, he returns to 'headline', his neck now wrapped in a blue scarf, Lloyd later commenting: "It's not a fashion statement."
'If I Were A Song' is the first track of the second set, and it's like he's caught his second wind, with a beautiful paced performance almost like Leonard Cohen. 'Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken' draws a rapturous audience response, but Lloyd downplays it. "Thank you. Just a song."
Having played the title track from his latest album 'On Pain' earlier in the first set, he attempts another although not before a doubtful comment, "this next song is a challenge," and invites the audience to participate with the "stop being drug addicts" backing vocal on his take of Bowie and Iggy's collaboration 'The Idiot'.
This is followed by his most positive comment of the evening ("that was uplifting, life affirming") before returning to his default perspective with "don’t worry, four grim ones in a row now". 'Woman In A Bar' is a song he puts into context: "A song from 2006, a year when I at last achieved perfect invisibility."
Prior to one song he comments that it didn't work in soundcheck, but he's now warmed up. Someone in the audience calls out: 'We'll sing it," to which he replies, "you don't know it," but then clarifies: "Some of you know it but not all of you." He then performs a successful, moving 'Myrtle And Rose'.
Nearing the end, Lloyd asks: "Do you have any antipathy towards Brisbane? Cause I'm going to have nothing for them tomorrow," but still manages to carry on and completes 'Perfect Skin' before leaving the stage.
For the encore he returns and comments "let's do this in reverse," adding, "I don't usually like to play anything after this one," and performs 'Forest Fire', during which he comments "over to you," but the audience still needs prompting to participate with backing vocals. A modest performance of 'Lost Weekend' closes the evening almost like an inessential coda.
This may not have been Lloyd's finest couple of hours given his health woes, but it is very unlikely that any in attendance left without feeling they had witnessed something special.
