Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It takes stamina and fortitude to tame the strength of Runaway Horses, however, on the odd occasion they can also be brought to heel by the grace and beauty of a performance which has never diminished from the first faltering steps and through to the accomplished portrayal of one who has seen and done it all with fire coursing through their veins.
On the back of the success of the 30th anniversary tour of the Heaven On Earth album, it is only natural that Belinda Carlisle should return to the British shores in which she has become an icon and representative of the era and sound of female breakthrough mature American rock and pop sentiment and glory. Two years on that same self-assurance was in evidence as Ms. Carlisle greeted the audience at the Birmingham Symphony Hall with the most deliberate, and disarming, of smiles and performances and in which those Runaway Horses would appreciate the handling of the evening’s entertainment.
And of course it is entertainment, an aural delight, seductive yet powerful, a sense of yearning by the audience to recapture the carefree moments of the last days of the 1980s when hope was in reach, when the pulling down of the Berlin Wall signalled an end to suspicion and the ever greed of governments to wage war. You cannot be blamed for wanting to relive memories, of evoking a time when songs such as I Get Weak, Circle In The Sand, Vision Of You, Summer Rain, Mad About You, Leave A Light On and Heaven Is A Place On Earth rang out across the airwaves, neither can a crowd be admonished for dancing through the night as if they had found a soothing nirvana in which to reside for a while.
To reminisce is as near to a right that we possess when it comes to our own lives, to often in the scurry and painful waste of modern day living we are urged to constantly devour the day and then forget it, to live in the memory, even for one gorgeous evening, is almost an act of rebellion that the former Go-Go’s front-woman demands as the sound lifts the air around the Symphony Hall to a near exotic level.
Sensuality is a lost art, especially in an age that seems to want to rival at times the worst of draconian thought, and yet for the audience lost in the words and music of Belinda Carlisle and her band, it was one that resurrected the resonance of beauty and allowed, for one night at least in Birmingham, to be adored.
Ian D. Hall