Photo: Ethan Weatherby
The element of surprise is something long gone from live music. Doors, support, late to stage, curfew, rinse-repeat. Sheffield’s Three Ring Circus is a novel proposition to bring back the intrigue: punters spread across three venues to see three musicians play stripped-down sets, but are completely in the dark as to what order they’ll get them in. Tonight, the roster is Sheffield’s favourite son Richard Hawley, French luminary Lou Doillon and Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield.
One of the three stages is Upper Chapel, a Unitarian church built in 1700 and tucked away in the city centre. Autumn’s set in up North but the church is kept warm by two glaring spotlights trained on the stage, which sits before the pulpit. On the wall to the left a hanging reads ‘Look after each other ‘cos good stuff’s scarce’. Lights are dimmed and without warning James Dean Bradfield steps out, and launches into ‘Everything Must Go’. Even in acoustic form it’s completely disarming, silencing the church. It’s an absurd setting for the Manics’ anthems of angst, especially Holy Bible, the irony of which isn’t lost on Bradfield. He quips that he’d rehearsed ‘Yes’ for the church but he “couldn’t do that” to his mother. He’s the politest blasphemer imaginable, conversational and warm in his iconoclasm, with much of his time between songs devoted to the late Manic Richey Edwards. Now nearly 20 years-old ‘If You Tolerate This’ remains a devastatingly potent warning, and ending on ‘Design For Life’.
Lack of bar inside the chapel means that the second Bradfield is out the door the congregation surges from the church to the pub opposite, before the next to arrive is revealed to be Lou Doillon. Born into fame as daughter of superstar Jane Birkin and director Jacques Doillon, Lou is a brooding songstress, building upon the already hushed atmosphere. Bilingual flecks surface frequently, giving her husky tone a mercurial nature on ‘Where To Start’. Doillon is upfront, professing how nervous she was after stumbling on ‘Good Man’, but quickly finds her balance, immediately comfortable as soon as she can make her audience laugh. ‘I.C.U’ is the template for much of her material, wistful and emotionally wringing – Doillon remarks her mother once told her she needed something up-tempo to tell which songs were meant to be sad. It’s no secret that few in attendance knew who she was when announced and many numbers roll into one another, but when stacked alongside two major players she holds her own.
To the delight of many in the chapel, Richard Hawley arrives to take the headline set in every sense. In a setting that many artists would crumble, it’s laughable how completely at ease Hawley is. Flanked by friend Shez Sheridan, the pair translate Hawley’s rich ensembles without dilution - the array of beautiful guitars he cycles through is staggering. ‘Tonight The Streets Are Ours’ is sublime, and ‘Heart of Oak’ is a tour-de-force in Yorkshire Spirit, showing Hawley’s ability to hew poetry from bread’n’butter matters of the heart. The two-fold nature of a seated and acoustic event often makes it feel like the audience at being played at rather than two, but Hawley thrives in this setting, able to take the night at a relaxed pace and service the chapel with belly-laugh moments. Hawley on home turf is a sight to behold, and it’s a fitting antidote to the bleak majesty of Bradfield’s set - the perfect way to end the evening.
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