I’d been wanting to see Barry for years. I nearly went to see the Bee Gees on their One For All tour in 1989 but didn’t know anyone else who’d want to go and didn’t think it’d be very cool to tell people at school my dad had taken me to a concert so I forewent the privilege. I probably could’ve gone to see them in 1991 but I didn’t much like the album they’d released that year.
I had a ticket for their Full Size tour of 1994 which was due to take in the Albert Hall that May. I even bought the ticket there in person. But a discovery of heart trouble in Barry caused them to cancel the tour.
I didn’t even notice when the One Night Only tour made its London stop in 1998. I was in the final days of a year out and looking at concert schedules was rather low on my agenda. I promised myself the next time the Bee Gees came through, I would get along to a show.
But I never got the chance. They didn’t tour the next album, I think they needed a bit of space from each other at that time. Then Maurice Gibb died suddenly in 2003.
When Barry announced he was coming to the UK on his Mythology tour as the last surviving Gibb brother, I knew I better catch it. This then was the set list.
Jive Talkin’
Lonely Days
You Should Be Dancing
Robert Stigwood tribute
1st of May
To Love Somebody
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (with Samantha Gibb)
How Deep Is Your Love
On Time (Stephen Gibb)
I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You (with Stephen Gibb)
Morning of my Life
New York Mining Disaster 1941
Run to Me (with Samantha Gibb)
With the Sun in My Eyes
Every Christian Lion-Hearted Man Will Show You
Robin tribute
I Started A Joke (with video footage of Robin
Spicks & Specks
Chain Reaction (Samantha Gibb)
Islands in the Stream (with Beth Cohen)
Guilty (with Beth Cohen)
Woman in Love (Beth Cohen)
UNICEF/David Frost tribute
Too Much Heaven
David English tribute
Fight (No Matter How Long) (Stephen Gibb)
Band introductions
Staying Alive
If I Can’t Have You (Samantha Gibb)
Night Fever/More Than A Woman
Brothers tribute
Immortality
Ordinary Lives
ENCORE
Linda tribute
Words
Massachusetts (1989 video)
Whereas the later Bee Gees shows (my halcyon teens and twenties) tended to get most of the sixties ballads out of the way in the early part of the show and then get everyone on their feet dancing to the late seventies R&B stuff at the end, Barry on his own seems to reverse this trend. Somehow it didn’t feel the same hearing You Should Be Dancing as the third song rather than the finale but you sensed that Barry needed a bit of positive energy. During the ballads he got choked more than once especially when following First of May (a favourite of veteran Bee Gees manager Robert Stigwood who was in the audience) with To Love Somebody, the latter now done at a melancholically slow pace. It seemed appropriate that he sang the next song How Can You Mend A Broken Heart with niece Samantha (daughter of Maurice Gibb) not only sharing the vocals but holding his hand. You sensed he needed it at that moment. How Deep Is Your Love was next before Barry took a well-advised break and eldest son Stephen (who was sharing guitar duties with veteran Bee Gees sidesman Tim Cansfield) took the microphone to do his searing blues-rock version of Maurice-penned On Time (B-side of My World in 1972 fact fans).
Steve stayed onstage to sing Robin’s parts in I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You after Barry jokingly recalled how Robin first shared his idea for a song about a man en route to the electric chair. The song still moves today though Barry tends to resort to his breathy voice now rather than the big belt he employed on the original and again it was slowed down. More nostalgia followed as Barry recalled writing Morning of My Life while he and his brothers were performing at the Wagga Wagga Police Boys’ Club in Australia in 1966. Film footage of rainbows and waves lapping at sand accompanied the evocative lyric of a song that deserves better than to have been locked away on a compilation album and an obscure soundtrack. Another brief tribute to Stigwood followed as Barry played his choice of the band’s first single New York Mining Disaster 1941 – made all the more poignant for hearing how Barry sounded alone on this harmony based song where Robin previously sang the solos. Then Sam came back to do Robin’s bit on Run to Me – one of their more overrated hits in my opinion, showing a group badly in need of second wind and just waiting for Arif Mardin and falsettos to come along.
With no new material to promote, there was room for an obscure album track or two – to my mind a trick the Bee Gees shot themselves in the foot by not resorting to beyond brief acoustic snippets. The prog-rock classic Every Christian Lion-Hearted Man Will Show You from Bee Gees 1st (1967) followed but Steve Gibb, doing the monastic chants sounded like a drunken Cockney and to my mind it didn’t really work. Then it was time for With the Sun In My Eyes, a lugubrious Barry solo vocal from the second album Horizontal (1968). It felt odd hearing it in Barry’s post-1969 love songs voice but it was great to hear it at all.
Another verbal tribute followed, this time to Robin Gibb, the most recently deceased of the brothers. Barry sang the first two verses of Robin’s anthem I Started A Joke before video footage of Robin kicked in for the rest of the song.
The pace picked up again for Spicks and Specks, deftly done as a medley with Chain Reaction, the Gibb-penned Diana Ross hit, for which Samantha Gibb returned to the stage. This began a sequence of songs the brothers had written for other artists. Backing vocalist Beth Cohen came and duetted on Islands in the Stream and Guilty filling in for Dolly Parton and Barbra Streisand respectively. Then Barry took another break while Cohen enchanted us all with her rendition ofStreisand’s classic Barry-Robin penned #1 Woman in Love.
The rest of the show did more tribute-paying – first off to the recently deceased Sir David Frost and his role in UNICEF. Barry described Frost as a man who “gave the world a sense of political humour and an open mind” then sang the song he and his brothers had donated to UNICEF, Too Much Heaven. The next tribute was to David English, still Barry’s friend today and their work together for the Bunburys cricket charity. Steve sang the Gibb/Gibb/Gibb/English song Fight (No Matter How Long) originally performed by Eric Clapton for the 1988 Olympics album One Moment in Time. That was the most pleasant surprise of the evening for this reviewer – one I hadn’t heard about on the online grapevine let alone YouTube.
Then it was time for band introductions and a good old groove on down to Stayin’ Alive and If I Can’t Have You, the latter sung by Samantha Gibb followed by the Night Fever/More Than A Woman medley played by the Bee Gees on their One Night Only tour.
Then Barry paid tribute to each of his three brothers: Andy the young man who went for his dreams “Always the red light at the back of the UFO”, Maurice the extrovert of the group and the gadget wizard, Robin the alternately sad and funny guy who would dye his hair the same colour as his dog, before again blinking back tears, Barry the oldest and last one standing sang what he, Robin and Mo believed to be the best song they’d ever written – Immortality. Paying tribute to their early years in Manchester, he then did Ordinary Lives, the song that opened their criminally underrated One album (1989).
Barry departed the stage to the sound of the band playing Massachusetts, no vocals except for us the audience. But he came back to pay tribute to Linda, his wife of 43 years and his partner as far back as the early hits. It was heartening to think that for all the losses he’d suffered, Barry still had the love of his life at his side and was enjoying being a grandfather – his daughter Alexandra was even in charge of the autocue that night. Then he sang Words and we all faithfully la-la-lad along and he did his old trick of doing “It’s only words…” and letting the audience take up the rest of the line before finally smiling “Ah ah! My turn. We’ve all got to go to bed at some stage.”
We had one last treat before the house lights went up though. Everyone had felt the absence of Robin and Maurice all night, not least Barry himself. But we were reminded of the good old days as a video played of the three of them performing Massachusetts in 1989. We all joined in as if we were experiencing the real thing.
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