View from the Green Room: Phil Coulter rolls back the years in Waterford's Theatre Royal
Phil Coulter performed at Theatre Royal.
Phil Coulter entertained a full house at the Mall last Sunday night in a slick, professional two and a half hours that interspersed song with chat, humour and piano solos.
In his own relaxed style, Coulter charts his own journey from humble beginnings in a two-up-two-down in Derry to accomplished song-smith with a string of number one hits.
Coulter understands music and singers and where he fits into the whole Tin Pan Alley scene. And that’s one of the problems with Phil. Very often in Ireland, heroic failure always seemed more acceptable than a highly-talented singer/songwriter who works hard at his craft and succeeds.
Coulter won Eurovision, he reminded us, when it was a SONG contest and when real popstars queued up to participate and when everyone regarded the event with awe.
So often in Ireland, we are treated to D-List rock celebs who drone on about the glory days they supposedly enjoyed. It was a joy to hear a real pro talk about songwriting, film-scoring, producing, editing and about the sometimes accidental nature of composing hit singles. Coulter has all the t-shirts and is more than happy to acknowledge the difficulty of breaking into the business.
Having graduated from Queen’s with a degree in music, Phil went to London and started knocking on doors to gain entry to the world of songwriting. Never afraid to laugh at himself coming from a Derry where a sectarian-generated male unemployment rate was high, his mother was horrified at her feckless son who wouldn’t settle down and get a proper job.
"She was worn out saying novenas and rosaries for her misguided son."
And that’s part of his charm — he’s never afraid to laugh at himself. However, while she was won over, she always retained a sense of foreboding that, as his father said, ‘it would all end in tears’. There were no tears when the footless Sandie Shaw won Eurovision with ‘Puppet on a String’ and later Cliff Richards belted out ‘Congratulations’ before being allegedly robbed of victory on the night. "You can join in if you wish," said Phil to the audience. Try stopping them, I thought.
Phil recalled all the songs he had written for Irish singers such as Butch Moore, Joe Dolan, Paddy Reilly, Billy Connolly, Luke Kelly and the Dubliners and Finbarr Furey and his brothers.
The highlight of the evening for me was a very moving piece on his Down-Syndrome boy in ‘Scorn Not His Simplicity’ that captures all the hurt, anxiety, bewilderment and despair of a parent seeking answers that cannot be given. The song takes on the form of a prayer with the very poignant Bach-Gounod Ave Maria accompaniment opening and closing the tune.
Phil Coulter never talks down to, or patronises, his audience – speaking warmly of the beautiful Theatre Royal and of Waterford as the “European City of Christmas”. At times he is like the chorus-master at the piano who encourages all those people at the back to sing out and join in. When he asks questions, his audience answers; when he comments, they murmur in acknowledging a man they feel is one of them.
It was just a lovely evening enjoyed by a packed house that stood to acknowledge a special concert.
