Errol Brown

Skegness Embassy Theatre was completely sold out for Errol Browns final date on this tour, which has seen him cover most of the UK. Unlike some bands, that become lazy and announce one or two shows and expect the fans to make the effort to see them, Errol certainly likes to try and take his music to the fans.

Errol has had quite a remarkable come back due to the film 'The Full Monty', and no doubt about it even Errol would agree that he owes that film an incredible amount of thanks for bringing his music back into the limelight. However the film was released in 1997, and so the question remains- how is Errol still managing to sell out venues 8 years after the film was released?

The answer to that is easy, it is quite simply because Mr Brown has such a huge back catalogue of instantly recognisable tracks which evoke such powerful memories- the scene from 'The Full Monty' when they are trying to strip to 'You Sexy Thing' or more personal memories like trying to impress members of the opposite sex with 'It Started With A Kiss' gently playing in the background. These are tracks that have transcended throughout the decades and even today they don't sound dated.

The other reason is that Errol is so smooth on stage that the phrase 'cool as a cucumber' springs into mind instantly. He still has the audience eating out of the palm of his hands, and he still knows how to amaze the female fans, without doing too much- just a smile or a wiggle of the hips is enough to send the females crazy.

The gig had a very slow start and there was not much action from the audience during the opening tracks, which included 'Love Is Life'. In fact it looked like Errol was taking it easy and just letting his backing singers do most of the vocals. However this must have been designed to give Errol a chance to warm his voice up for the action that was about to come...

Errol then mentioned to the audience that he will be working his way through the songs of his entire career. At this point things really heated up with hits such as 'Brother Louie' and 'Girl Crazy' being expertly delivered to the audience, who had decided to get up and dance along to the funky soul beats.

One thing that is easy to see is that Errol doesn't need to shout the vocals- he is one of the few signers who have that natural gift of being able to sing every note in key whilst making it look like that he is just moving his lips ever so slightly to release that angelic silky smooth voice. It literally just flows from him, and for me this is what puts the former Hot Chocolate singer into the category of 'legendary' singers such as Diana Ross and Tina Turner.

The crowd were treated to all the Hot Chocolate classics such as 'Emma', 'It Started With A Kiss', and 'So You Win Again', but the best tracks were saved for the closing part of the set- the crowd went crazy when the guitar riff of 'Every 1's A Winner' was belted out through the PA system. Even today, that has to be one of the all time greatest riffs. Even if you are not a Hot Chocolate fan, you instantly know what it is!

As you would have expected 'You Sexy Thing', was performed right at the end of the set, and left the audience feeling like they had been given their moneys worth!

I'm already counting down the days to his next tour...