Kirk Brandon aKoustiK Tour – Duffy’s, Leicester, 24/08/2017

After being still amazed by the grandiose power of Brandon’s Theatre of Hate back in March, I ventured into Leicester to watch another side of his talents. This time we get Kirk and a couple of shiny black acoustic guitars, his striking voice and the charming accompaniment of talented, affable cellist Sam Sansbury.

Tonight we get some new songs including a reaction to the recent atrocities in Manchester and London – “A song that wrote itself” declared the charismatic 61 year old. We also get acoustic versions of songs which have bejewelled his rich back catalogue since the days of the aforementioned Theatre of Hate and the more commercially successful Spear of Destiny. Westworld and Never Take Me Alive really work acoustically amongst newer songs such as Medievilist. Some people call Brandon an underrated talent, but who? I’ve always rated him highly, and tonight, clearly, so do many others.

If you like small intimate venues where you can really engage with the performers and the artists, then this is one of them, a superb little gem in the heart of Leicester. I was very impressed by the sound and ambience, and I get the impression the performers enjoyed it as much as we did. Kirk bounced off the audience with some good natured banter and plenty of smiles; I really would recommend that if you can attend this little mini tour somewhere , then please do so. I would also recommend that you attend an evening at this superb little venue when in town.

Support for the evening were Leicester’s Midnight Dogs, also unplugging for the night, I’d never heard of this outfit until tonight, but now that I have, I will investigate further, as I really enjoyed them. They usually play a full on electric set, but on tonight’s evidence it wouldn’t be a bad idea if they could repeat their new album acoustically too. An excellent evening’s entertainment.