I suppose you could call this a “perfect” concert to go and see! This is because Mark Nevin was the leading songwriter and guitarist for Fairground Attraction for whom Perfect was their biggest hit, reaching number one in the UK charts, Australia and Ireland and being in the top ten in half a dozen countries in Europe.

Mark has also worked with a number of other artists in a song writing capacity, writing most of Morrisey’s album Kill Uncle and also with the late Kirsty McColl, as well as having five solo albums in his own right.

Mark appeared last week at Otley Courthouse and regaled the audience with 20 of his songs throughout the evening.

The show began with three songs from his latest album “My Unfashionable Opinion”. These were Uncertainty, followed by the title track from the album and then Only Dreamers (Live the Dream). We were then treated to Long Haul White Knuckle Ride, The Moon Is Mine and Dolly Said No To Elvis. Two further songs from the current album Curly Wurly Boy and Punching Above My Weight followed and to end of the first half two older songs from his repertoire – Alleluia (or Beautiful Guitars) and Find My Love which Mark mentioned was the song that Peter Oakey, Newsreader Fiona Bruce’s stalker, had taken the lyrics from which he kept sending to her, and was one of the top ten hits by Fairground Attraction.

Throughout the first hour, Mark, who hails from South Wales originally but spent most of his early life in Bristol, interspersed the songs with anecdotes about his early life, work with Fairground Attraction and other highlights of his song writing career.

After a 20 minute break the second half continued in a similar vein with songs and banter from Mark. Three more songs from the new album The Stars Align, Clown and Forgotify opened this second period with Mark mentioning that Forgotify was written as a result of him hearing that four million songs on Spotify have never been downloaded by anyone. The next song, Little Jimmy Pain, was written as a tribute to Little Jimmy Scott the 1940s & 1950s American jazz vocalist famous for his high counter tenor voice. Sing Anyway from the new album followed and I felt this was very reminiscent of Dire Straits’ “Telegraph Road” in its structure and tone.

Mark currently lives in Highgate and is a near neighbour of Ray Davies from the Kinks. This led him to write I Know Where Ray Davies Lives which was the next song that we were treated to and this was followed by A Ghost Of Summer Past, another of his back catalogue. He then went on to tell the love story about an RAF pilot called Bernie who met a girl in South Africa during the Second World War. This turned out to be Mark’s parents for whom in 1988 he wrote the song “Perfect” which as mentioned above was Fairground Attraction’s massive worldwide hit. The audience delighted in joining in with Mark on this number.

He then slowed down the tempo to conclude the concert with Have A Go Hero. But, of course, there was the inevitable request for an encore from the audience and Mark duly obliged with Broken By A Breeze, taken from Fairground Attraction’s Live In Japan Tour Album from 1989.

Throughout the evening Mark had been superbly backed by his former Fairground Attraction bandmates – Simon Edwards on bass, Richard Marcangelo on drums and the brilliant Roger Beaujolais who dazzled on the vibraphone.

The audience who had been seated café style for the concert had enjoyed two hours of thoroughly brilliant music from this superb songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. It may have been below zero outside, but inside at Otley Courthouse the music had been red hot!

l John Burland