Heart Full of Soul

A song written for The Yardbirds by Graham Gouldman at the start of his career, and the inspiration behind the name of his acoustic band “A Heart Full of Songs”, who we went to see at RNCM Manchester last night. Only eighteen months or so late - our tickets were dated 2nd April 2020 and had been bought in December 2019 as a birthday treat for Mrs C. Well, she’s had another birthday since then, so it’s been a very delayed treat!
Up until the middle of March last year, there was still hope the concert would go ahead, albeit with lots of sanitising. But with only ten days to go, the announcement of the first lockdown put the kibosh on it - along with every other concert and show we had booked for 2020!
Despite receiving an email before the event saying that we should wear masks except when seated, and that we needed to show a covid pass, there was hardly any mask wearing and no one asked to see our passes. It definitely seems that now we are almost three months down the line from the lifting of restrictions in July, that mask wearing and social distancing are becoming the exception rather than the norm. Let us hope that we do not suffer a sudden rise in hospitalisations and deaths this winter as a result.
Whatever, the concert was well worth the wait. A great selection of songs from Graham’s long career, not just the obvious 10cc ones but also hits he had written for the likes of The Hollies and the aforesaid Yardbirds. What was nice though was that he also performed several songs from his solo albums, including some from his latest album, released last year. Good to see that he can still write some fine songs at the age of 75.
However, great though it was to attend this much delayed gig, I also received two notifications in the last week, of concerts - that had only been booked earlier this year - being postponed to 2022. It seems that no matter how it may have looked last night, we are still quite a way from returning to a “normal” way of life.