REVIEW: Gary Barlow Delamere Forest

THE Forestry Commission may have been hosting big-name outdoor gigs for almost 20 years, but Saturday’s was arguably one of the most special at Delamere Forest.

As if by magic the sun broke out just in time to ensure the scene was set for a perfectly intimate ‘homecoming’ gig in the venue just down the road from Gary Barlow’s home town of Frodsham.

“There’s a real poignancy to being here today just a couple of miles from where I was born,” he told an enthusiastic crowd of thousands.

“After 28 years of touring all over the place it’s an absolute pleasure to be back home in this part of the world.”

In the Take That frontman’s case the 28 years have come full circle, having started out performing in small venues to legions of screaming girls he has chosen to take his solo tour out to smaller venues once more, where those screaming girls have since grown up and are now bringing their own children along with them.

Even Gary’s bleached blond hair is a throwback to his early days playing working men’s clubs.

Warrington Guardian:

This is a show you can sense the former X Factor judge is genuinely enjoying taking around the country, a far cry from the dazzling spectacle we have come to expect from Take That tours but on this occasion one man and a piano sufficient to keep his audience enraptured.

REVIEW: Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott at Delamere Forest

There’s always an intriguing mix of concert goers at these outdoor events, from hardcore fans to picnickers and locals simply out to enjoy the ambience (some possibly too much judging by the number of empty wine box cartons lying around at the end of the night).

But it’s testament to Gary’s showmanship – and his trusted band – that in a female dominated audience even the men begrudgingly dragged along by their other halves had put their phones in their pockets and were up dancing with the rest of the crowd to Let Me Go and Relight My Fire as the sun set across the forest.

Warrington Guardian:

Saturday’s set list featured older solo material including Open Road and Forever Love as well as a few forgotten Take That favourites from the Everything Changes album that some of the audience ignored but hardcore Thatters relished.

Other classics including Could It Be Magic were given the big band treatment, while a flavour of Gary’s sideline in musical theatre was demonstrated with songs from Calendar Girls and Finding Neverland.

In Live Those Years Again, a new song penned especially for his tour, the crowd cheered and laughed as his self-deprecating humour recalled some dark days after the band split and he found an ‘appetite for pies’.

But the 47-year-old master of reinvention has done enough touring to know that certain crowd pleasers are best left until the end, and Saturday was no exception, with Never Forget proving to be a fitting finale for fans who will remember the evening for a long time to come.

  • Gary Barlow at Delamere was part of the Forestry Commission’s Forest Live concert series