Legendary guitar-auteur and Sheffield icon Richard Hawley comes to the Dome near the beginning of his UK tour to smother its grand acoustics with his soaring psych rock.
Riding on the acclaim of critics and fellow musicians, the former Pulp member attracted Jarvis Cocker’s attention in the early noughties, his debut garnering praise from acts as prominent as Radiohead and R.E.M. Only the first of a score of albums to be held in near-universal esteem, Hawley’s hypnotic, tearing guitar lines and jilted croon have seen him tickle the edges of greater success over the past decade, with a nomination for the Best British Male Performer at the 2008 Brit Awards and the 2006 Mercury Prize, which winner Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys quipped had “been robbed” from him. Great chart success he might not have seen, but there’s no doubting that his masterful manipulation of slow-burning dynamics and well-contained psychedelic ventures remains unmatched.
This year saw the release of his sixth album, Standing At The Sky’s Edge, garnering an almost unheard of five-star review from The Guardian. Performing material from the album earlier in the year confined to a wheelchair, still saw him met with all-round praise, so this Autumn’s tour is set to blow at least as many minds with his characteristically balanced melange of crowd-pleasers and spaced-out re-arrangements, all cosmic jams and diving guitars interspersed with rockabilly-esque plodders. Together with a stage manner as self-deprecatingly wry as his atmospherics are sky-high, Richard Hawley is a staple jewel in British rock history. This is one show not to be missed.
20:00, £20, £18 + BF
For more information visit www.brightondome.org
