Page 54 of Going Solo

The light on the studio phone started flashing.

“I have to get this, I’m sorry,” I said, picking up the receiver, my finger hovering over the button.

“Enjoy the show,” Cole said. He looked deflated. Victory. As Britain’s prince of pop and his sister walked out of the broadcast van, I pressed the phone line button. It was Denzil.

“What the fuck was that, bruv?”

Cole’s Flame burns bright on opening night

Review by Davinder Singh

The venue plunges into darkness. The crowd in the Glasgow Arena erupts. Smoke creeps along the stage from the wings. The tension in the venue builds. It’s visceral. The Kenneddict beside me is shaking so badly with anticipation that I can hear her teeth chattering. A spotlight sweeps over the crowd, circling around the 14,000 faces in the venue. “This is about you,” it tells Kennedy’s fans. “You are the stars of this show.” The fans get the message. Women scream. The spotlight lands in the centre of the smoke-filled empty stage. There’s one man missing, it tells us. It flicks off, plunging the entire auditorium into darkness. The crowd starts stamping and shouting for Kennedy. It goes on for a full minute, maybe two. When they finally get the message and quieten, a cello plays the six opening notes of “Reborn.” It’s a tease—a tease set to become a motif throughout the show, but we don’t know that yet.

A flash of bluish-purple light as the cello strikes a solitary note, quick as a drumbeat. It’s so loud, so unexpected, the audience is instantly silent. It’s not “Reborn.” It comes again—the note, the flash of purple light. Then darkness. The note comes one more time, this time followed by a couple of bars of music, and it’s clear Kennedy is opening the show with the Eurythmics’ iconic “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” The crowd cheers in recognition. They’ve been wrong-footed. It’s created a tension. Then the same few bars, now accompanied by a swirl of lights. Then silence and darkness. What is the message here? Not the tease; that’s good showmanship. But why open with this song? Kennedy has twelve tracks onThe Flame, and he has five old Go Tos songs he’s allowed to sing—the ones he originally wrote for the band. There are enough hits among them for a crowd-pleasing concert. Why the cover? Whythiscover?

The cello plays the same few bars again, and finally we get to see the cellist. He’s high up on a platform above the stage, gently backlit with LEDs in the same soft bluey-purple light. He’s barely a silhouette. After the same few bars cycle one more time, the spotlight finally goes on. It’s Kennedy. He’s shirtless. It looks like he’s only wearing underwear. The knees straddling the instrument are bare. The crowd goes absolutely wild, but Kennedy doesn’t stop playing. Who knew he could play the cello? This is new information for the fans—obsessed fans, Kenneddicts, who thought they knew every minute detail about their hero’s life. It’s the first clue that we’re in for a special night. On the big screens, we see a tear form in Kennedy’s near side eye. It’s not CGI. It’s real. It falls, and suddenly there’s not a dry eye in the house. Fans are screaming their love. Finally, he sings the famous opening chorus of Annie Lennox’s song. It’s just Kennedy and the cello. It’s stunning. There’s not a noise from the audience. He sings the first verse, and the meaning of this opening number becomes clear. Kennedy is telling us he has been used and abused. Tonight, he’s baring his soul. This is his therapy. We are his therapists. The lights go out for a split second, and the crowd is hit by a wall of sound. An entire orchestra is now backing Kennedy’s vocals. They’re not onstage—there’s no orchestra pit. It’s a backing track, recorded by the London Philharmonic last month. Kennedy sings the bridge, then he’s plunged into darkness as the orchestra plays what was originally a keyboard solo. His voice returns for the next verse, but where’s Kennedy? Out of nowhere, we hear an electric guitar. Kennedy emerges from beneath the stage, guitar in hand, wearing what looks like it might be the leather jacket he wore to the “Make Me a Pop Star” auditions a decade ago, and he’s giving the crowd a sexy, growly, rock and roll rendition of the chorus. For the rest of the song he’s Mick Jagger, he’s Freddie Mercury, he’s Ozzy Osbourne. He’s a long way from the safe, sweet, plastic boy band heart-throb we’re used to. The Kenneddicts are eating it up. Then,slam!A cold ending. The music stops. There’s a spotlight on Kennedy. His guitar is gone. We never even saw him get rid of it. He’s gripping the microphone stand. Is this the moment he stops to talk to the crowd? No, a synthesiser strikes up in the background, playing the unmistakable first six notes of “Reborn.” Again, it’s a tease. He gives us “Battle Cry.”

What follows is a two-hour synthesised, orchestrated soft rock spectacle. Kennedy gives the crowd everything they’re aching for and so much more they didn’t even know they wanted. It’s a musical feast.

“This is for you,” he tells the crowd when he finally speaks. “It’s always been for you.”

He gives us “Sidestepper,” “Gaslight Tonight” and “The Whole of Me” from his solo album, before bursting into a fully orchestrated version of the Go Tos’ biggest hit, “Genevieve.” The crowd practically sighs with relief—the tension of not knowing whether we were going to get any of the songs he wrote for the Go Tos dissipating.

I wonder if we might get more covers. Perhaps Roy Orbison’s “You Got It.” Erasure’s “A Little Respect.” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” or any of the other tracks Kennedy covered on “Make Me a Pop Star.” He swerves them. When he finally dips into his bag of covers, he chooses a slowed-down, string-heavy rendition of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters.” We’re deep in the mellow part of the second half now, the six “Reborn” notes now an obvious motif, creatively woven into almost every other song. Musically, it’s exquisite. The level of artistry is nothing short of genius.

There’s a pause. It looks like Kennedy is going to speak, but he changes his mind. He goes directly into “The Flame.” Everyone around me is crying. Tears are streaming down Kennedy’s face.

“Enough wallowing,” he says when he’s done. A hi-hat. A steady drumbeat. Smoke billows across the stage. A bright, warm yellow light fills the auditorium as a piano comes up through the middle of the stage. The crowd cheers. Cole stands at it and gives us the first six notes of “Reborn” again. We’re all so thirsty for it by now. He turns to the camera, the big screens showing that famous cheeky grin. “Do you want it?” he’s saying. Screams of “yes” from the audience. He shakes his head, then casually taps out the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.” From there, track by track, the tempo increases until Cole ditches the piano and a synthesiser plays the first six notes of “Reborn.” It’s finally here. The audience roars their appreciation. It’s the perfect way to end an unforgettable gig. But, of course, Kennedy doesn’t end there. Having accepted his applause, he gifts us his encore.

“Hey, do you guys wanna hear ‘Genevieve’ again, but this time, the way I wrote it?”

He didn’t need to ask.

What follows is vindication. The Kenneddicts were right all along. Felicity Quant should have “let Cole be Cole.” The Totally Records pop factory had one of our generation’s greatest musical geniuses in their hands, and they squandered him. They should have taken him out of the plastic wrapper and let him play, because unleashed from the shackles of manufactured pop, Kennedy’s talent is breathtaking. His stage presence, his musicality, his charm, his energy, his passion, his talent combine to create a spectacle that is without a doubt the best concert this country has seen this century. Donotmiss this gig.

The Flame Tour has upcoming dates in Manchester, Cardiff, Birmingham, Leeds, and London before heading to Europe, Australia, Asia, the U.S., and beyond. It returns to London for three final dates at Wembley Stadium next spring.

ChapterTwenty-Two

Ihated that I couldn’t fault Cole’s show. But I had no time to process it anyway. As soon as it ended, Nick and I dashed around, recording reaction interviews with fans outside the arena. The audio would be sent back to Tarneesha in London to package up, ready for us to play during the next night’s Pop Review Special from Manchester. We were sitting in the outside broadcast van getting ready to send the files when I got a text.

Denzil:Kennedy’s team are sending a car. Get in it.

Toby:U must b joking.

Denzil:You two need to sort this out. We can’t afford a repeat of tonight’s Joan Crawford v Bette Davis pissing contest. Disaster bruv!

Toby:No way u know who those 2 women R!

Denzil:Googled ‘Cardi v Nicki but super gay’ to find beef you would understand.

Denzil:Listen fam, if the Kennedys pull their sponsorship, whatever happens with the board is all on YOU. Our jobs are on the line here. Real deal. You got that?

Denzil:FIX IT!

I had told Denzil about Ludo’s efforts to convince his dad to buy the Pure Network. As he’d pointed out, it was an outrageous long shot—the kind of thing drunk people say to each other in a pub. And we couldn’t even be sure that if the Sentinel Group did buy us, we’d all keep our jobs. The best thing to do, he said, was to put the whole idea out of my head and focus on ensuring the board didn’t put the station up for sale in the first place. Annoyingly, that meant playing nice with Cole Kennedy.

A black SUV with heavily tinted windows rolled up. It was well intimidating. Nick and I stared at it, not moving. A massive security guy, built like a Navy SEAL who’d been created Transformers-style using eight other Navy SEALs, got out of the driver’s door. He had black aviator sunglasses on, even though it was nearly eleven at night.

---