This was an extraordinary concert in many senses. For one night only, Steve Harley and his eight-man band performed the first two Cockney Rebel albums — The Human Menagerie (1973) and The Psychomodo (1974) — accompanied by the Orchestra of the Swan and its chamber choir. Harley, 61, behaved as if it was the moment he had been waiting for all his life, and perhaps it was.
The singer came on wearing a battered bowler hat, a prop from the old days, which now combined the aesthetic of A Clockwork Orange with that of Steptoe and Son. Strumming an acoustic guitar, he seemed a little uncertain of the words and chords as he embarked on some of the more obscure songs at the start