Neil Halstead – The Basement, York, 14th November 2012

Grow old together. With these words Neil Halstead inscribed my friend Ian’s copy of the tour poster (liberated only moments before from the entrance door to The Basement of the City Screen cinema in the centre of York) and a mere minutes after having come hotfoot from the venue’s tiny stage. He was standing in the bar area behind a hastily erected merchandise stall, sweat still dripping from his brow and was responding to not only Ian’s comment about having last seen him some twenty years ago in Nottingham when playing with Slowdive but also the dawning realisation that both men were in fact the exact same age.

Growing old together seemed a highly appropriate sentiment in these circumstances. Having recently turned 42 and yet still looking improbably young, Neil Halstead seems to have been around forever and with him his music just continues to evolve and mature. This is reflected in the body of his fourteen song set this evening. There may not have been anything from those very early Slowdive days but five Mojave 3 songs once more see the light of day (or night). They fit perfectly alongside his solo material, which tonight is drawn entirely from his 2002 debut Sleeping On Roads and his third and most recently released album, the consistently impressive Palindrome Hunches.

There is an incredibly subtle hypnotism to this performance, something that is perhaps not immediately apparent at the time as you are swept along quite irresistibly by the innate charm and emotional intimacy of Halstead’s words and music. He commences this journey with Tied to You, the album version now stripped of its violin and piano seems even more stark in its realisation of the ties that still bind a relationship together despite it having slipped inexorably away. The ensuing Yer Feet, whilst much more country than the more traditional roots folk of the opener did still mine the same lyrical seam of good loving having gone bad. Who Do You Love? further cements this theme but to view Halstead as some sad-eyed miserabilist wallowing in the creation of his own pathos would be to entirely miss the point of his raw emotional honesty and the manner in which it can draw you effortlessly into a reflection upon your own life and human condition.

Full Moon Rising sees support act and young man of Suffolk Matthew P return to the stage to accompany Halstead on upright bass. He has departed by the time of Hi-Lo and In Between, another mesmeric consideration of life and love and the coexistence of and yet often uneasy alliance betwixt the two. What could they do to make you feel OK, asks Halstead. It is a question which clearly does not beg an answer.  In Love With A View is quite wonderfully beautiful while My Life In Art seems to embody almost everything about Halstead and his music; both he and it possess an almost imperious melancholy that somehow manages to transcend sadness itself, filling you with a strange happiness and sense of hope for what may lie ahead. He closes rather fittingly with Hey Daydreamer, an optimistic nod to the future, a future in which we may all be able to grow old together.