The eternal renaissance of Michael Head has been a wonderful thing to witness. Over a wayward forty-odd year anti career, the Liverpool born song-writer has moved from the under achieving felicities of The Pale Fountains to the urban fantasias of Shack, alighting a decade ago in his current tenure helming the ever changing Red Elastic Band. Judging by 2022 album, Dear Scott, and its predecessor, Adios Senor Pussycat, released in 2017, Head seems to have finally found his time.
The Red Elastic Band’s line-up currently features a superb ensemble bringing Head’s scallydelic kitchen-sink narratives to life with guitar led grit laced with baroque flourishes. This should translate in Head and co’s forthcoming Edinburgh Festival Fringe outing into a virtuoso showcase of more recent material interspersed with a pick and mix of favourites from Head’s colourful back pages.
Recently, this has seen Head rewind all the way back to some of the Pale Fountains and Shack’s finest moments, which sit seamlessly alongside songs from Dear Scott. A cover of 1960s band Love – a perennial inspiration for Head – may also feature.
As previous Edinburgh visits have shown, Head is in full possession of a renewed focus that sits alongside his impish spirit and easy bonhomie with a devoted audience. With a long mooted status as one of the finest songwriters of his or any other generation finally seeing Head receive the attention he deserves, as the man himself might say, ‘Is right.’
Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band, Summerhall, Friday August 11, 7.30-11pm.
The List 2023 Edinburgh Festivals Guide, July 2023
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