Tag Archives: theriddle

Gig Review: Nik Kershaw @ Shepherds Bush Empire, 16 October 2024

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As the male solo artist with the most weeks on the UK singles chart during 1984, it’s not surprising Nik Kershaw is celebrating that year with a lengthy European tour, playing his two top 10 albums Human Racing and The Riddle in their entirety.

He’s still able to command big audiences for his solo gigs, and with good reason – his vocals are if anything much improved since his mid-‘80s heyday and his songs are built to last, with their bold melodies, crafty harmonies and intricate arrangements. But then regular readers already know movingtheriver is a big fan.

So Kershaw’s back catalogue is an embarrassment of riches but also presents some potential problems for a five–piece ‘rock’ band – for a start, how to recreate those dense textures and sequence-heavy arrangements? Thankfully he generally didn’t scrimp on any of that, mostly using the same audio stems and keyboard sounds from the 1980s. There was little or no ‘reimagining’ during this gig, hugely enjoyed by a packed house.

‘Roses’, whose lyrics are still relevant today, was the surprise but effective first song, the band (all middle-aged white guys dressed in black, but then you don’t go to a Kershaw gig expecting bells and whistles) arriving onstage to the opening percussion loop.

‘Know How’ and ‘Wild Horses’ (a favourite of Miles Davis) sounded fantastic, benefitting from bassist Paul Geary’s beefy tone and Kershaw’s fluid guitar lines.

He delivered a great vocal on ‘Wide Boy’, while ‘City Of Angels’ – written about ‘a city I’d never been to’ – featured a lovely laidback performance from drummer Bob Knight, though at times during the gig he lacked the dynamics and smooth grooves of original Human Racing/Riddle sticksman Charlie Morgan.

Geary had his work cut out aping Mark King on ‘Easy’, but he did a pretty good job if somewhat lacking the Level 42 man’s precise percussiveness and syncopated slides. Impressively, keys player Phil Peckett seemed to take care of all the track’s fast sixteenth-notes in real time rather than relying on a sequencer. The whole band did pretty much the same on ‘Don Quixote’.

Self-deprecating to the last (he’s always claimed he’s just a ‘muso’ who was thrust into the limelight), Kershaw played down his Green credentials before ‘Save The Whale’, claiming it had been written as a last-minute ‘rent-an-issue’ song for The Riddle.

The excellent ‘You Might’ featured ‘too many chords’, according to Kershaw, while the first set closed with the album’s perennially popular title track, featuring tasty duel lead guitars though with a rather stiff ‘rock’ feel compared to the slinky sixteenth-note groove of the original.

Set two featured Human Racing in its entirety, and this is where the now rather dated zaniness of Kershaw’s early stuff became apparent, the superbly sung title track and ‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’ aside, though the latter was played surprisingly early in the set.

There was a lengthy tribute to and applause for producer Peter Collins who passed away in June before Kershaw closed up Human Racing with ‘I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’, rescued by the frontman’s lengthy Holdsworth-like guitar solo.

He seemed genuinely delighted by the ecstatic crowd reaction, signing off with a breezy ‘You’ve made an old man very happy’, before encoring with mass singalongs ‘When A Heart Beats’ (complete with superb note-for-note solo from second guitarist Adam Evans), should-have-been-a-hit ‘The Sky’s The Limit’ and ‘The One And Only’.

A great night of classy music and enjoyable nostalgia. Who knows – maybe Nik will amaze us with Radio Musicola @ 40 in 2026.

The Essential Nik Kershaw

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Universal’s Nik Kershaw CD re-release program seems to have stalled after Human Racing and The Riddle emerged around ten years ago, a pretty scant return considering he spent more weeks on the UK singles chart during 1984 and 1985 than any other solo artist.

And though all four of his MCA albums are now on streaming platforms, there’s still no sign of decent physical versions of Radio Musicola or The Works (and absolutely nothing on vinyl yet), so we’ll have to make do with Essential Nik Kershaw, a new budget 3-CD compilation which, confusingly, has the same title as a similar one-CD comp that came out in 2000.

Back when his four 1980s albums were basically unavailable, Kershaw fans had to make do with fairly crappy CD compilations, so it’s a relief to report that this one’s pretty good. It’s two discs of original album tracks/singles plus one of remixes.

The good stuff first: the remastering is absolutely first-rate. The tracks have punch and not too much bass, usually the first sign of an overzealous tinkerer. The design is attractive, and the digipack very light but very solid.

There are a few decent B-sides I’d never heard: ‘When I Grow Up’ circa The Works could easily have been a single, and certainly should have appeared on the album. Instrumental ‘One Of Our Fruit Machines Is Missing’ gives the Chick Corea Elektric Band a run for their money in terms of insanely technical jazz/fusion.

Now for the not-so-good stuff: the track order is random, certainly not chronological, and there are songs missing that most fans would say are among his greatest: ‘Easy’, ‘City Of Angels’, ‘Walkabout’, ‘Lady On The Phone’, ‘LABATYD’, ‘Violet To Blue’.

The disc of remixes is a slog to get through, but it’s worth hearing ‘One Step Ahead’, ‘Radio Musicola’ and ‘Don Quixote’. There are also zero musician/producer credits and no liner notes.

But Essential Nik Kershaw a very good entry-level compilation and a treat to acknowledge again just how high the quality threshold was with this guy. I’ve also developed a real penchant for some material from the first album which I’d earlier dismissed, especially ‘Bogart’.

In recent interviews, both his engineer/mixer Julian Mendelsohn and keyboard player Andy Richards rate Kershaw as top of the list in terms of musical talent, pretty special when you consider the two have worked with Trevor Horn, Yes, George Michael, Level 42, Prefab Sprout and Paul McCartney.

(Mendelsohn also revealed that, much to producer Peter Collins’ annoyance, he spent a whole WEEK mixing ‘Know How’, so highly did he rate the track. His work definitely paid off…)

 

Nik Kershaw: The Riddle

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the-riddle-54d854ab5fe83After several years playing guitar in cover bands and fronting East Anglia blue-eyed-soulsters Fusion, Nik Kershaw wrote a few poppy-sounding tracks and suddenly found himself thrust into the solo spotlight.

But he didn’t fool anyone with the snood, fingerless gloves and mullet – it was obvious from the get-go that Nik was a superb musician and songwriter. He had a voice a bit like Stevie Wonder (though my dad rightly identified something Numanoid too), played guitar a bit like Allan Holdsworth and wrote clever, catchy pop songs with prog, metal and funk undercurrents.

He also had some very famous fans in the US including Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. But his image, dreamed up by some wags in MCA’s marketing department, probably didn’t do him any favours – Smash Hits summed it up perfectly, calling him ‘the thinking man’s Limahl’!

The Riddle is probably his best album. It was recorded pretty quickly to cash in on the unexpected success of his debut Human Racing, though featured a fair amount of post-production courtesy of the excellent Peter Collins who later produced Rush’s Power Windows and had previously worked on Musical Youth’s ‘Pass The Duchie’.

It features a very solid but expressive rhythm section (Elton John sticksman Charlie Morgan and ex-Secret Affair bassist Dennis Smith plus a great guest appearance from Level 42’s Mark King on ‘Easy’). Kershaw’s use of synths was kind of revolutionary, with intriguing sequencer patterns and subtle, almost subliminal pads. He also had invaluable input and some ZTT flash from keyboardist Andy ‘Relax’/’Two Tribes’ Richards throughout the album.

Yes, The Riddle screams the mid-1980s, but every song on it is memorable and has a very distinct flavour. On a songwriting level, Kershaw always knows how to keep things interesting for the listener. ‘Know How’ is a case in point – initially coming across somewhere between Level 42 and Talking Heads, it veers into prog territory with its superb pair of instrumental breakdowns.

Miles apparently recorded a cover of the very pretty ‘Wild Horses’ which has never seen the light of day. Hollywood-baiting ‘City Of Angels’ and eco-themed ‘Roses’ have more than a hint of Steely Dan about them, partly due to the use of the famous Purdie Shuffle, nicely reformatted by Morgan.

‘Wide Boy’ and ‘Don Quixote’ have lots of interesting melodic modulations under their pop sheen. ‘Easy’ is a brilliant band performance and crafty composition with a nutty middle eight, while the closing ballad ‘Save The Whale’ is also musically rich. And though the title track divides opinion, to say the least, check out its two-chords-per-bar middle-eight for a great example of Kershaw’s craft.

The cover photo was taken at Chesil Beach in Dorset. The Riddle peaked at #8 in the UK and went multi-platinum. The lead single was the title track which reached #3 in the UK. ‘Wide Boy’ peaked at #9, ‘Don Quixote’ #10. Three top 10 hits from a sophomore album – pretty damn good.

Nik was massive for approximately 18 months. He played Live Aid in July 1985 but then waited until autumn 1986 to follow up The Riddle – probably a mistake. The screaming girls were growing up fast or moving on to a-ha. He was developing as a musician and songwriter but gaining a much more ‘selective’ appeal, in the words of Spinal Tap’s manager Ian Faith.