Live Review: Don McLean, Catherine Britt

Catherine Britt took the stage in the already full theatre and after a brief and chatty introduction, the country singer launched into a selection of her nearest and dearest tunes, including the heartbreaking Dear Emmylou, before wrapping up her set with a take on the 1928 classic, Big Rock Candy Mountain, a song which she prefaced by saying, “This was written during the Great Depression – so it goes to show that beautiful things really do come out of hard times.”

Slick in a shiny satin shirt, Don McLean strolled into the spotlight, all waves and smiles at the sea of Grecian 2000 and grey heads before him.

McLean began the set humbly, thanking the audience for coming and still supporting him after all these years, before stopping hearts with the promise to play, “some of my older stuff.”

After launching into Castles In The Air, McLean again apologised to the audience for his scratchy voice, before popping a throat lozenge and declaring that, “we'll stick to the slow ones for a while and see how my voice improves.” It didn't.

A brief interlude of raucous honky-tonk guitar work (sans vocals) gave McLean the needed rest before embarking on one of his major hits, Vincent. He tackled it with aplomb, navigating his voice around the higher octaves and attempting a more whispered approached to the Vincent Van Gogh-inspired classic.

In between each song McLean continued to apologise, and perhaps this is why the crowd were so quick to forgive him. Humble, friendly and apologetic, McLean announced that, “I could've cancelled this with my voice and all but I know how much these tickets cost and I want you guys to have a good show.”

And just when you thought his voice was really about to break, McLean and his band (who looked as though they'd been hauled out of a retirement home, but still rocked it) launched into those blissful opening chords of American Pie. This is one tune McLean didn't need to worry about singing as the crowd did it all for him. Hundreds of voices all chanting, “Bye, bye Miss American Pie”with McLean as choir leader was worth the ticket price alone.