REVIEW 22/4/01


      
Chris Helme - Naked Bar Guitar

      Sunday 22/04/01

      
A major coup for the promoters at Joseph's
      Well: the increasingly popular Naked Bar Guitar acoustic nights
      on a Sunday managed to get a former Seahorse and an ex-Carpet
      on the bill for probably the biggest NBG night yet. With two
      big names like this, more will surely follow, and hopefully Leeds
      will have one of the biggest acoustic nights in the North.

      
Headlining the night was ex-Seahorses singer
      Chris Helme. His voice has improved a hundred-fold, his
      range is excellent. He's written a whole heap of great material
      which shows he was never just John Squire's puppet, and he's
      gone from York busker to genuine star. He's got bags of charisma
      and is dripping with emotion, and is quite clearly having fun
      up there on the stage ­ that's half the beauty of his set.
      The other half is simply listening to his songs. He didn't give
      that many song titles out, but his third song was an absolute
      classic with heart-wrenching vocals and some clever guitar work.
      Forget about The Seahorses, these songs were more like Radiohead
      in their better moments with Jeff Buckley singing. Helme has
      a fantastic falsetto too. Helme doesn't need a band. He can fill
      that stage himself, and he fills the room too. I never thought
      I'd say this, but Chris Helme Was Great.

      
And you can quote me on that.

      
review by Chris May