Words by Martin Brisland. Photos by: Rhona Murphy.
A balmy summer evening and sweet reggae vibes made for a brilliant gig at TK Maxx presents Southampton Summer Sessions in Guildhall Square.
Now in its second year, it is a great, well organised venue for music.
Everybody was engaged and could see the stage clearly with lots of space for dancing and moving around. We were in the accessibility area which was particularly well run and included a person signing.
Bitty McLean, a friend of Ali Campbell for many years, was a very good warmup act with a great energy.
The original UB40 formed in Birmingham in 1979 and had a highly successful career selling seventy-five million records until an acrimonious divorce in 2008 when the band split into two versions. UB40 featuring Ali Campbell had a line-up of top musicians, the sound quality was excellent and helped by the now standard use of technology to infill certain sounds.
For me, it is Ali Campbell who has the iconic voice. He is the spirit of UB40.
The energy from the new band member who replaced Astro, who died in 2021, was fantastic and a highlight of the evening. One small downside was not introducing the band to the audience.
There was not enough time for all the hits and classic album tracks of UB40 in the 90-minute set, an unfortunate side-effect of a much loved band that had so many wonderful songs.
I would recommend seeing an act at this venue and particularly seeing UB40 with Ali Campbell again. Presumably, he did not have far to go home as he has lived in Highcliffe in Dorset for nearly 20 years!
For details of upcoming Guildhall Square gigs this June: summersssions.com/locations/southampton
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