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Telegraph
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Daryl Hall and Glenn Tilbrook: Proof that you can be too old to rock
At the midpoint of a set that at times tested the boundaries of endurance, on Monday night at the Royal Albert Hall, Daryl Hall played a yawningly indifferent version of Walking in Between Raindrops, a yacht-rock lowlight from his most recent album, D. At its eventual end, with something like chutzpah, he looked at the audience and said, 'I can tell that you liked that one'. Not where I was sitting, they didn't. Presumably tired of listening to new songs from an LP that failed to chart anywhere in the world, up on a balcony that wasn't full to begin with, this was the point at which people began exiting their seats, never to return. With his peripheral vision perhaps compromised by a straw fedora with a brim as wide as an industrial-size wok, from the stage, it may have been that Daryl Hall had no idea that the listless and consistently thinning crowd up in the gods were responding only to hits released in a previous century with his erstwhile partner John Oates. Like an elephant in a grand and beautiful room, at the Albert Hall, Oates's name went unmentioned. That the pair have recently fallen out, badly and publicly, over the sale of publishing rights, only added to the air of decline that seemed to me to be stinking up this loveliest of venues. It wasn't that Hall didn't play some of his best-known hits, it's that he didn't play them very well. Rich Girl seemed alarmingly shrill, while a clatteringly elongated I Can't Go for That (No Can Do) outstayed its welcome. In truth, signs that this might not be a smooth night arrived as early as the second song, when the usually irresistible Maneater was derailed by a vocal that sat too far behind the beat and some way off key. With Daryl Hall just 18-months away from his 80th birthday, a polite way of putting it would be to say that his voice is not what it once was. Speaking impolitely, I'd say that his once world-class larynx is today worth less than toffee. Notwithstanding the muscle and finesse of his undoubtedly accomplished six-piece band, at times, it was difficult to watch. Particularly painful was a duet, during the encore, of the Squeeze favourite Pulling Mussels (From the Shell) with the evening's support act Glenn Tilbrook. A mere babe in arms, at 67-years-old, Tilbrook's own voice had no problem recalling the pitch and clarity of a pop classic he co-wrote and recorded more than four decades ago. (He had no trouble, either, singing gems such as Tempted and Black Coffee In Bed during his own set.) Warbling away by his side, both figuratively and literally, Daryl Hall sounded as though he was drowning. By the time the musicians onstage unfurled a well-received and deftly executed You Make My Dreams, the evening's closing song, it was too late to do much more than graft a phoney happy ending onto a concert that warranted nothing of the kind. With entire rows by then empty, both upstairs and down, evidently, not everyone was buying it. Emerging into the London night, I caught an exchange between two less-than-happy customers. 'It wasn't great,' said one, 'but you have to give it to him, still playing live at 78.' After a moment's consideration, the reply came. 'Yeah – but do you?' Daryl Hall is on tour in the UK until Friday;
The Guardian
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Daryl Hall review – despite strained vocals, this 80s pop legend isn't totally out of touch
Hall & Oates sold a gazillion records and deserve every dollar. Their songs of the 1970s and 80s are pure pleasure; sun-kissed, smooth and mellow. It is a music of high noon, no shadows. But what happens when twilight comes? Daryl Hall is 78. The partnership with John Oates, 77, has reached a messy end, with lawyers involved. Now he is on the road, under his own name, playing the songs of his gilded youth in a more tarnished age. He strolls on to the Glasgow stage in a broad-brimmed hat and spends much of the set seated at a grand piano. His voice is not what it was in the same way as the Colosseum is not what it was: what remains is an interesting ruin. Where once his singing was a wonder of clarity, stamina and control, he now struggles. Sometimes, trying for high notes, he places a hand at the top of his chest, as if the effort is a strain. His slick six-piece band do a lot of heavy lifting on backing vocals. He has made an addition to the lyrics of Sara Smile that feels telling: 'After all these years … time is talking to me.' Yet there is beauty in this brokenness. Everytime You Go Away is a highlight because the feeling of bruised experience in his voice suits the subject of the song – a sad letting-go. The big feelgood moments come from his sidemen. Shane Theriot's guitar solos on Private Eyes and Rich Girl are undeniably cool, though not as cool as Charlie DeChant, a glitzy wizard with long white hair and a gold-sequined jacket who started playing with Hall & Oates in 1976. To see him shuffle forward and perform the insouciant sax break on Maneater is to witness a little moment of pop magic. Such virtuosity magnifies rather than hides the diminishment in Hall's voice. It feels at times like he is the weak link in his own great music. Perhaps he should do a Dylan: rework the songs radically so that he can do them justice. But would his fans go for that? Daryl Hall plays Royal Albert Hall, London, 19 May. Then tours the UK until 25 May
