The moment I stepped into the hall I slipped back twenty years.

Black walls, with bars attached to the roof from which hung a few lights aimed at a small stage cluttered with instruments and speakers I was in a moment back in the old college hut which used to host the Thursday lunchtime informal show called Outhouse.

I remember it as never really having any formal structure but somehow people appeared to perform music and comedy with simply lighting to an appreciate audience. Richard Hawley’s gig was more polished but simple and was all the better for it. When I’d booked the tickets (standing only) Martin and I had said to each other, “It will be like the Guildhall, with a standing area and some seating”. The reality was this was a small room in which you could only stand.

We’d arrived way too early and spent 5 minutes driving up and down the road convincing ourselves that this place was some theatre, perhaps a little tatty around the edges, easily spotted from the road. In fact it was a nondescript door guarded by a bouncer who said the doors wouldn’t open for at least 5 minutes and the support wouldn’t be on for an hour. We decided the best place to wait was the pub over the road for a few pints of Guinness and Summer Lightening.

Talking to the people behind the bar it seemed we weren’t the first to think that and the pub was usually packed before a gig on account of the bar prices being cheaper than the venue. In fact once we had been to see the support (a strange American singing angst ridden songs and trying to out Elvis Elvis Costello) we came back for another hour in the warmth and light of the bar.

Hours after we arrived we bluffed our way back in to watch Hawley and his band. I’d only come to his music via his latest album Coles Corner, named after the place in Sheffield where people met to go on dates. Most of the gig was songs from this album with a few from earlier ones and a little rockabilly to liven up the crowd, not that they needed it. Spotting the two young teenagers in the crowd Hawley remembered how his parents had taken him to see bands and asked if they played in any bands. After the gig they even got to go backstage to meet the man himself.

With the sounds of “The Ocean”, different from the album and more a wall of sound played long and loud, ringing in our ears we tried to get into the Candela to have a post gig Turkish grill but ended up going home happy…