Review: Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott, Forest Live, Dalby Forest, near Pickering, June 23

TOWARDS the end, Paul Heaton revealed why the Bard of Barking, Billy Bragg, was supporting Heaton and Abbott, those fine northern voices from The Beautiful South.

>>>>>> GALLERY OF PICTURES>>>>>>>>>>

Bragg had been instrumental in Heaton's first Hull band, The Housemartins, signing to his label Go Discs, back in the day. And he here was, still singing his songs of solidarity, feminism and workers' rights, but now looking uncannily like Jeremy Corbyn from a distance (but with a guitar).His Dylan appropriation, The Times They Are A Changin' Back, is his song for out times, and as ever Bragg's humorous yet earnest chatter was as vital to his hour-long set as A New England or Levi Stubbs' Tears.

In the spirit of Bragg's politically whipped-up performance – matched by the Workers' Revolutionary poster backdrop of Heaton and Abbott – Heaton was later to let off both barrels about pro-Brexit Range Rover drivers and their posh picnics but it was witless by comparison: the one false note of a night when he regularly thanked the sold-out Dalby forest gathering for their continued support through his duo years with Abbott, his Beautiful South co-vocalist from 1994 to 2000.

Their third album, Crooked Calypso, had brought them a top three chart placing, their highest since The Beautiful South went west, giving Heaton and Abbott every right to build their 110-minute set around now as much as past deeds and The Housemartins' perkiest hits.

The songwriting is sometimes more arch today, noticeably in People Like Us, but The Lord Is A White Con and She Got The Garden are as punchy as Saturday's brass section were. Rotterdam, Don't Marry Her, Old Red Eyes were back; so was the old Beautiful South balloon finale as Happy Hour and Caravan Of Love sent us home to the beautiful north.

Charles Hutchinson