Paul Heaton – Live Review – The Piece Hall, Halifax
By Steve Crabtree, July 2025
The Piece Hall has already seen some incredible names this summer, but on this particular night, it turned into Heatongrad for the second time in as many evenings. A second sell-out show for Paul Heaton, and a return to a venue that felt like it had been built to host something this perfectly pitched.
I went along to this one with my friend Dan, a guy who’s beginning to love this place as much as me. And we both like The Housemartins, The Beautiful South, and Paul Heaton – so when we’d got inside the place, among a mixed crowd, many of whom were clearly with some form of Heaton helping shape their musical tastes in the first place, it felt like we were going to be in for a good night.
It was busy, expectant, and felt like a proper summer night in Halifax, which had turned in to Heatongrad for the evening. And with it came an unmistakable night of something very special…
“Big favourites sprinkled throughout the set”
From the off, we were given a mix of Heaton’s solo work, Housemartins classics, and Beautiful South favourites. It’s a formula that we found out was the perfect way to give a crowd a brilliant night.
He opened with his solo track ‘Just Another Family’, followed by a brilliant rendition of The Housemartins’ ‘Bow Down’, which went down a storm with the crowd.
Then came my personal favourite – ‘Old Red Eyes Is Back’. It’s always been the Beautiful South track for me, and here it came with red lighting effects and everything. I loved it, even though I thought it’d come later in the set. But it didn’t matter – the gig hadn’t peaked.
We were enjoying this one from the start, with big favourites sprinkled throughout the set. No teasing us, no leaving it till later…favourites came out all the way through, which went down will with the 6000+ of us.
“Only Paul Heaton sings like Paul Heaton”
One thing about Paul Heaton is that his voice is unique. Only Paul Heaton sings like Paul Heaton – no-one sounds remotely like him, and he’s as good on the mic as he is on the recordings. It wasn’t just him that was in fine voice though. The whole courtyard found their lungs to sing along with ‘I’ll Sail This Ship Alone’, and did exactly the same for ‘Song For Whoever’ – a track so often misunderstood as a love song, but which stands as one of the best lyrical pieces to ever come out of the UK music scene.
More big moments came in the shape of ‘Happy Hour’, ‘Let Love Speak Up Itself’ and ‘Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)’ – the one that I still find myself calling ‘Carry On Regardless’. I know I’m not alone in that.
Heaton’s delivery was spot on. The humour was there too – introducing each member of the band by naming their football team, which earned plenty of good-natured boos and jeers/half-cheers along the way. There was a lovely nod to Halifax too, with Heaton talking about seeing The Three Pigeons pub on his walk into the town. It was all received with warmth and plenty of laughs.
“Fantastic”
Alongside him at the moment is Rianne Downey, taking the female vocal parts and proving herself a strong, confident presence – every bit as good as the brilliant female voices Heaton has shared the stage with before. She’ll be supporting Texas later in the week as a soloist, so I’ll be looking forward to seeing her. She handled ‘Don’t Marry Her’ and ‘A Little Time’ as well as anyone, and I think we all liked her.
It was another gig that flashed by quickly, and just when we thought it might be time to go home, the encore arrived.
And then it kept going.
We got four final songs across two extended encores – ‘One Last Love Song’, ‘You Keep It All In’, ‘Rotterdam (Or Anywhere)’ and, to round it all off, a crowd-pleasing, sing-every-word version of ‘Caravan of Love’. It gave us an extra 25 minutes or so – and not just of filler, but of unforgettable tunes.
Dan and I both turned to each other during the closing moments, grinning and saying the same thing: this had been fantastic. Everyone around us seemed to agree. I could happily have enjoyed both night of this, and then done it all again. The whole of The Piece Hall had been on the same wavelength, and I’m not sure we’ll get another night quite like it for a while. A ‘Perfect 10’ from me.
Images: Cuffe & Taylor and The Piece Hall
Give Steve music, give him food, give him theatre, tech or travel… and he’s a happy man. He’s been writing professionally since 2003, turning to journalism in 2017 when it offered him the chance to enjoy a lot of his existing passions, and learn some new ones at the same time. Steve can be found spending many of his summer nights watching bands at The Piece Hall in his hometown of Halifax, or enjoying a bite to eat and a drink with his wife anywhere in Yorkshire at any time of year. Random fact: He does the best impression of Zippy and George from Rainbow that anyone has ever heard.
