As a long-time Roxy Music fan I first encountered Tim Bowness’ voice by happy accident a decade ago on the Henry Fool CD ‘Men Singing’, which also featured a guest appearance by Roxy guitarist Phil Manzanera. Since that time I’ve delved deeply into Tim’s own back catalogue and am gradually dipping my toes into the waters of No-Man, the band he previously co-led with Steven Wilson.

I’d been to a couple of small gigs by Tim last year (at the Everyman cinema in King’s Cross and at The Hope & Anchor), which were nominally to promote his then latest album ‘Butterfly Mind’. I say “nominally” because the gigs lasted around an hour in total and featured almost nothing from that album! lol

As this recent gig was designed to promote Tim’s new album ‘Powder Dry’, I expected something similar, with a start time around 8.45 or 9pm; how wrong I was… I arrived at 8.35pm, still lamenting not being able to catch the solo support set by keyboardist Pete Chilvers, only to find that the main set had already been in full swing for about 20 minutes!

The band had opened with a trio of No-Man songs in ‘Time Travel In Texas’ (from ‘Wild Opera’, 1996), ‘All The Blue Changes’ (from the amusingly titled ‘Together We’re Stranger’, 2003) and ‘Wherever There Is Light’ (‘Schoolyard Ghosts’, 2008). These had been followed by Tim’s own ‘The Warm-Up Man Forever’ (‘Abandoned Dancehall Dreams’, 2014).

Having hidden my embarrassingly late arrival at the bar (the majority of the audience was seated, which came as rather a surprise), the first full song I heard was a personal favourite, ‘Sing To Me’ (‘Stupid Things That Mean The World’, 2015). This was followed by ‘Lost/Not Lost’ from the new album, which featured some tasty guitar from Matt Stevens, who was seated at the rear of the stage and partially hidden from view.

‘Rainmark’ (‘Flowers At The Scene’, 2019) was apparently written on a ukulele, which led to an amusing introduction about George Formby’s influence on Prog, although Stevens’ guitar work owed rather more to the sound of Robert Fripp. The song also featured the powerful drumming of Andy Edwards.

Tim then amusingly introduced the band members, some of whom attempted to respond in similar fashion. As well as Stevens and Edwards, the other featured musicians were Rob Groucutt (whose father Kelly was a member of ELO) on keyboards and John Jowitt on bass.

Jowitt and Edwards locked in to great effect on ‘Sweetheart Raw’ (No-Man’s ‘Loveblows & Lovecries: A Confession’, 1993), while Groucutt’s keyboard outro sounded semi-orchestral. After returning to the new album for ‘Idiots At Large’, Tim delved back into ‘Schoolyard Ghosts’ for ‘Mixtaped’, which featured a twin guitar mid-song thrash by Stevens and Groucutt. ‘Things Change’ (from No-Man’s ‘Flowermouth’, 1994) brought the main set to a close.

At previous gigs Tim had no prepared encore (he’s self-effacing enough to exhibit genuine surprise when one is called for), but had kept a couple of songs up his sleeve on this occasion. The funkier rhythm of ‘Housekeeping’ was introduced as the title track of a recent No-Man retrospective boxed set, although it originates from the 1993 album mentioned above, whereas ‘A Stand Up For The Dying’ appears in Tim’s latest release.

Tim had explained that this last song, for which Edwards swapped drum kit for guitar, stemmed from a couple of unexpected family bereavements during the recording, so he felt obliged to lighten the mood immediately afterwards. As is his regular wont, he allowed the audience to select which song they’d like to hear again, safe in the knowledge that they almost always choose the same one! The evening therefore closed with a short, but powerful romp through ‘Time Travel In Texas (redux)’.

As I continue with my overdue No-Man research, I can highly recommend to anyone not yet familiar with his work the string of albums recorded under Tim’s own name during the last decade, many of which include bonus discs of extra material; well worthy of your attention!

Gary Smith

Photos: Talie Rose Eigeland

Setlist:

Time Travel In Texas; All The Blue Changes; Wherever There Is Light; The Warm-Up Man Forever; Sing To Me; Lost/Not Lost*; Rainmark; Sweetheart Raw; Idiots At Large*; Mixtaped; Things Change; Housekeeping; A Stand Up For The Dying*; Time Travel In Texas (redux).

(*From the album ‘Powder Dry’)