‘Chris de Burgh Live 50LO’ or — Burgh-ered Senseless?

Waiting for Chris de Burgh to take to the stage at the Harrogate Convention Centre on Saturday night I couldn’t help but look around me and notice that every single person who had come to see the deranged minstrel perform was white. Was this a representation of de Burgh’s fan base or a phenomenon of Harrogate itself? Either way, sitting there surrounded by a couple of thousand middle class, middle-aged white people staring expectantly at an imposing set of towering lights the overall sensation was of being in the studio audience for an episode of ‘Gardeners Question Time’ directed by Leni Riefenstahl. The evening would only go downhill from here.

And then the hall lights dimmed and the man himself appeared… completely alone. Uh-oh! There was no band, no percussion players or any other form of sonic support. Just de Burgh, his guitar and a piano. Shit.

Now this was going to be a massive problem because Chris de Burgh’s music is insipid enough as it is, even with a rhythm section, so as he began singing without any other necessary accompaniment his songs came across as so bland, so toothless and so mild I wouldn’t have noticed the difference if I was being serenaded by a sentient Farley’s rusk. This wasn’t entertainment; it was the musical equivalent of end of life care.

Yet it wasn’t just almost three hours (??!!) of insufferably dull songs we were subjected to that night because, as everybody knows, Chris de Burgh is also a storyteller and so delighted in regaling the audience with various tales and fascinating nuggets of wisdom he’s acquired over the years. There was a brief lecture about dolphins, after which he sang a song about them, followed by de Burgh asking the men in the audience if any of us knew how women worked. I felt fairly confident I did (aren’t they human beings like the rest of us, Chris?) but before I could raise my hand the Burghomeister started Burghsplaining at us how nobody in history has ever understood women, not even women themselves. In fact, it’s completely impossible to comprehend them at all. They’re an unfathomable mystery! He even informed us he’s currently reading a book called ‘How to Understand Women’. It’s over 1,000 pages long and the first of 37 volumes, and he still has no idea about them (he chuckled to himself… and nobody else).

Before I could figure out what either Susan Sontag or Germaine Greer would’ve made of that statement he then started talking about his favourite songs by other artists and the universal beauty and purity of music… only to then brutally murder both ‘Let It Be’ and ‘Always On My Mind’ (imagine watching David Attenborough enthuse about how miraculous and glorious the Atlantic Puffin is only to then violently kick one to death. This was exactly the same thing).

You see, the massive issue is de Burgh can no longer hit those high notes (he’s frequently lucky if he gets close to even being in the right key), yet he’s caught up in such a rapt state of narcissistic unawareness that he ploughs on regardless like some sort of permanently flaccid porn star determined to work it in with his thumb anyway no matter how much pain he’s causing others. The result isn’t so much singing as more a sort of pained squealing and/or squeaking. Was this a multi-million album selling artist or a highly distressed gerbil? It was impossible to tell.

“Oh well,” I thought to myself, “At least it can’t get any worse.”

And then it got worse. Much, much worse.

He abandoned his guitar and piano completely, walked to the front of the stage and began singing along to a backing track. A BACKING TRACK! Not only that but he constantly kept getting everyone to clap along, although I suspect this was in order to give us something to do with our hands besides slitting our wrists.

So there I was watching Chris de Burgh alone on stage singing Chris de Burgh songs all by himself as though we were down the pub watching Chris de Burgh at a Chris de Burgh karaoke night singing Chris de Burgh songs with Chris de Burgh sounding worse than any Chris de Burgh karaoke singer could sound trying to sound like Chris de Burgh. As a musical performance it was an abomination. As a piece of musical parody it was a work of genius.

He then announced that the evening was drawing to a close so instructed everyone to get up out of their seats and come down the front to party and dance, whereupon another backing track kicked in and Chris de Burgh launched into… Toto’s ‘Africa’??!!!

And the place absolutely exploded!

Startled out of my stupor I gazed around me as hundreds of women dashed to the stage and completely lost their collective shit. It was total pandemonium as bras and knickers went flying through the air whilst de Burgh squealed, off-key, “there’s nothin’ that a hundred men or more could ever do!!!” and I sat their thinking “What the fuck is going on?!” I can assure you, gentle reader, that watching Chris de Burgh completely destroy Toto’s ‘Africa’ whilst several hundred females worked themselves up into some sort of orgiastic frenzy was, without a doubt, the weirdest event I’ve witnessed in my entire life.

It was then I realised with a sickening shock that Chris de Burgh was right — women ARE a total mystery, because I could provide no rational explanation as to what the hell was going on around me. Yet the experience was so insane, so berserk that it wasn’t just women I no longer understood but life, existence and the very nature of reality itself.

As my friend and I exited the convention centre he asked me if I was going to review the gig.

“Of course!” I replied. “How on earth could I resist writing about that?!”

“Be careful,” he warned, “Chris de Burgh is notoriously thin-skinned and incredibly litigious. He’s taken 18 people to court for defamation already.”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him, “what could possibly happen? It’s all going to be totally fine.”

LAWYER’S URGENT APPEAL:

On behalf of my client I would like to point out that any, and all, financial donations anyone would care to contribute to cover the legal costs for the upcoming case ‘Christopher de Burgh vs. Colin Edwards’ should be sent to firm of –

Ajax, Viburnum and Roughage,

27 Artichoke Ave,

Gdańsk.