There can be nothing more uplifting than the presence of a smiling and laughing Edwyn Collins, 14 years on from a life-changing stroke, on stage in Brighton last night as he and his band ran through a spellbinding set of songs that stretched all the way from Orange Juice's debut single to his current solo album. Despite being left with a physical weakness on his right side and asphasia that has slowed his speech, Edwyn has not stopped making music and performing live; and a happy upside to his condition is that his singing voice is as robust and fluent as ever.
Opening with the up-tempo title track from 2010's Losing Sleep, and following with the punky Outside from this year's Badbea, told us that this would be a rousing evening and the sound was excellent from the start. When your band has as its core long-time writing and recording collaborators Carwyn Ellis (bass) and Sean Read (keys/sax) from Colorama and The Rockingbirds, respectively, and is augmented by Andy Hackett (another Rockingbird) and Barrie Cadogan from Little Barrie on guitars, you know you're in safe hands.
The set quickly dipped back into Edwyn's Orange Juice past with a sublime version of What Presence?! from the band's final LP and there were further treats from that era: that trio of Postcard Records singles from 1980 - Falling and Laughing, Blue Boy and Simply Thrilled Honey - as well as I Guess I'm Just A Little Too Sensitive, the glorious Rip It Up and In A Nutshell from 1982's classic LP, You Can't Hide Your Love Forever. But it was another track from that album that reminded me how tender and sophisticated Edwyn's Orange Juice songs were. Intuition Told Me Part 1 may only be a minute long but it's lyrics - "smiled lopsidedly, decidedly awkward, he asked her" - can melt your heart in that time.
Between the songs from the Orange Juice days and half a dozen tracks from the classy new album - particularly It's All About You and I Guess We Were Young - there were other gems: In Your Eyes, from Losing Sleep, which saw Edwyn's son William come on stage to sing The Drums' Jonathan Pierce's part; early solo single, the rocking Don't Shilly Shally; the poignant recuperation song, Home Again; and, of course, A Girl Like You, which was introduced playfully and with good humour by Edwyn, as every song throughout a wonderful evening had been.
