Barbican, LondonA socially distanced Neil Hannon and bandmates celebrate 30 years of wry drollery in a short but sweet retrospective
“Hey!” ejaculates the Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon, waving his hands, “it’s … a gig!” We all know how he feels; personally, it’s my first time back in a room with a band since March. The singer’s amused disbelief chimes with tonight’s surreal setting; it is a very Neil Hannon sort of emotion, too. This is an artist with a career-permeating sense of being slightly taken aback.
The first track the Divine
comedy play of a short-but-sweet hour-long live set – Absent
Friends – rings out all too poignantly in a socially distanced, one third-full Barbican hall. What a lot of people are not here tonight! Hopefully, they will be tuning in via the live stream. And what a lot of space there is in which to put your coat: clots of seats in ones and twos wear an orange stripe to denote occupation. Acres of brown velour separates them. The bar is shut; preordered drinks await, kept cool by gel discs most often seen on small children nursing a bruised forehead.