There is always reason to be suspicious of reunion tours. The risk is that instead of seeing a great concert with your favourite band you have to witness pathetic has-beens that for profit massacre everything that was once good with their band. This is not one of those concerts. It is in fact not as much a concert as a kind of musical, with Kevin Rowland in the leading part. New songs and old songs in new versions – “The world has changed, so why shouldn’t we?” Rowland asks – are presented in a theatrical setting to form a story about Rowlands life. And there is absolutely no feeling of anything pathetic here. Dexys sound great and they have the full attention and support of the audience the whole show through.
The reunion of Dexys came about because Rowland needed money. Now, he claims, he doesn’t do it for the money any more but because of some other reason (he won’t say what). And it is evident that this concert is not about money (even though it is expensive as hell, 350 kr). Rowland obtains redress here. After years of drug addiction and even homelessness in the beginning of the nineties he has fought his way back to the music. Now both the audience and the critics love him and Dexys. He is a happy little old man tonight, running around and doing little dances and being very charming. He is a lot more harmonious now than in the eighties when he was on war with the world and refused to play the songs the audience wanted to hear the most, “Come on Eileen” and “Geno”. We get to hear both of them tonight and during “Come on Elieen”, which is played live for the first time in twenty-one years, the crowd is in ecstasy.
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Rowland, known for his many different erratic clothes styles (New York dockworker-style, boxing boots and ponytail, scruffy hobos/gypsy-style, gown and suspenders) have dressed his band elegantly tonight in suits and vests. Rowland himself is the most elegant of them all and in pinstriped suit, pink braces, beret, sunglasses and thin moustache he looks like a French gangster. An interesting thing Rowland does is that he changes a bit in the texts of the old songs, changing tense and making comments. Like in “Knowledge of beauty” where “this is my protest” is changed to “this was my protest” or in “This is what she’s like” when he after a line says “well, at least that seemed really important to me at the time I wrote this song”.
I seldom have seen a more thrilled audience. Dexys is a band that never has had too many fans. But those they have are devoted. KB is not even full but the people there, a charming age mix of those who liked Dexys back in the beginning of the eighties and those who have discovered them now, follows every move Rowland makes. When it is supposed to be quiet it is dead quiet, when there is something fun everybody laughs, and when Rowland from his heart with his beautiful vibrato voice tells us about his life I see tears in people’s eyes. Sometimes this is like a mass, with Rowland confessing his sins and finding salvation, getting down on his knees with his hands up in the air. Religion and art combined can be very effective.
I believe that Dexys are more popular in Sweden (partly because of their influence on the likes of Moneybrother and Håkan Hellström) than anywhere else. At KB they look very happy and maybe a bit surprised by the good reception they get from the audience. It was not many years ago the audience at a concert at the Reading Festival in England booed and threw bottles at Rowland when he tried so sing songs from his solo album “My Beauty”. Tonight the audience asks to hear songs from that album: “Whitney Houston!” someone shouts to everybody’s amusement (Rowland did a fabulous version of “The greatest love of all” on “My Beauty”). “That one is great, but not tonight” he answers. I am looking forward to maybe hearing it the next time.
/Erik Sandberg
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