Boasting over 50 years as the troubadour somehow always on the wrong side of the popular music press, 2019 sees Harper embark on what he calls “The Last Tour”.
At 78, Harper still casts a whimsical eye across the audience, mostly who have greyed with him, to perform a solid, accomplished set with excellent support from an ensemble, led by Fiona Brice, now incorporating keyboards, electric bass and percussion, with strings and brass to finish the young and inspired complement. Given that this was originally billed as a dip into the back catalogue from the Folkjokeopus era, the band set up isn’t out of place, although the set varied and encompassed much of his career, including old favourites such as perhaps his best known piece, When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease, in which the game is metaphorically used to describe life, and death, and a stunning rendition of Hallucinating Light, which could have been taken straight from 1975’s HQ, such was the accompaniment, lifted also by Bill Shanley’s sublime electric guitar.
Making full use of his vocal range, and backing, Harper reminds us subtly that even back then he had his finger on the pulse of what today seems remarkably prophetic, with the lyrics of his 1968 penned epic (written when the French were rioting, he says, with a wink), McGoohans Blues, finishing the first half in which, “The town label makers stare down with their gallery eyes, and point with computer stained fingers each time you arise, to the rules and the codes and the system that keeps them in chains, which is where they belong with no poems, no love and no brains” or where in that pre-reality TV period Harper foresees that “Ma's favourite pop star is forcing a grin; he's a smash, Obliging the soft-headed viewers to act just as flash, the village TV hooks its victims on giveaway cash, the addicts are numbers who serve to perpetuate trash”. Bringing that theme right up to date, in one of three new songs show tested, The Wolf At The Door nods to the digital age, of scammers and scams, selfies and the Kardashian phenomena.
The set was warmly received but proved movingly poignant, with Harper declaring he was glad he could do the last tour, “Whilst he still could, and not when he couldn’t” and of a life lived with no regrets, despite the ups and downs, which made the closing new song, “I Loved My Life”, (tender, lingering and beautifully unremorseful, but talking of a life that “Must stay here”) leaving this critic hoping the goldstar performance was not a Blackstar eulogy.
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