THE WATERBOYS
Cabot Hall, Canary Wharf, London - 10/22/04
by super-deluxe guest writer Nick Morgan

One of the reasons for Mike Scott's continued longevity in the music game is his refusal to be put into a box. Always changing, never getting tired. But on Friday night in the middle of London's monument to mendacity he was walled in (with an audience of wedding-reception chaired admirers) by the Temple of Avarice. His response was to open his two-hour set with Universal Hall (from the quite brilliant eponymous album) - a song forged at the Altar of Love. And the effect was magnetic - Scott, pianist Richard Naiff and fiddler Steve Wickham delivering an evening of such intimacy (at one point Scott took time out to poll his audience on a new song) that Mammon was put firmly back into his own box.