A word if I may about the venue, as I’ve not been to the Night & Day Café before. It’s a funky little place just off Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. It’s long and narrow, with toilets downstairs in the cellar. The décor is eclectic, Tiffany lampshades mix with 70s-style plastic ones, the bar is lit by vintage stage spotlights and there is an abundance of fairy lights throughout. Furniture is transport café utilitarian or faded padded pub benches, and the walls are full of music-related cartoons and caricatures. I like it! We grab a table at the back, and I am delighted to discover that you can see the stage from most of the room. 

The musical adventure tonight starts with Matty James, who seems to have lost his surname since last we met. You may recognise Matty as the bass player in the current incarnation of Tyla’s Dogs D’Amour, although his solo material is a somewhat more laid-back offering. It’s folky, Irish, pirate. It’s good to get your fingers and toes tapping, there’s acoustic guitar, harmonica and Matty’s distinctive gravelly vocals and it all melds together in a very entertaining way. Matty explains that his job tonight is to warm us up, and he does a pretty decent job of it. We smile and nod along, and even manage to sing back a bit at the end with his most “famous” song ‘Brand New You (Same Old Me)’. The set is welcoming, and does indeed give us a measure of warmth to start the night off with.

Carol Hodges is next, with her piano, stripy pyjama jumpsuit and failing fairy lights. She sings soulfully and plaintively about the existential crisis that is her life, and I find myself oozing empathy as she tells us of her struggles to “fit in”. It’s not all doom and gloom though, there is a wry and self-deprecating humour in both her lyrics and her stage banter. She is politely political, ephemerally edgy. There’s a cover of Leo Sayers’s ‘The Show Must Go On’ and the 70s child in me is disappointed by the lack of clown but enchanted by the quality of voice. She finishes with a singalong that goes “Ooh-ooh-oo-oo-oh” and I feel that despite the lack of depth or meaning in that particular lyric I totally understand what it is telling me. It was nice. The music was nice, Carol was nice and the audience was nice. Please read that in a “Jazz Club” voice – niiice!

Finally our main man takes the stage and tonight is another chance for the casual observer to marvel at the sheer depth of talent and width of genre that Ginger Wildheart encompasses. This particular project began around three years ago as a studio jam with his friend Neil Iveson (with whom he shares guitar and vocal duties), and morphed through various personnel changes over lockdown to the show we get tonight. An album was written and recorded back in 2019 but for various reasons it’s only due to be released this coming October, by which time it seems a second album may also have been written and recorded. It seems entirely possible in fact that the second album could come out before the first one, because Mr Wildheart has never been one to do things the conventional way. The set itself is quite difficult to describe. It’s Ginger releasing his softer, more laid-back side. There’s a twang of country, a pinch of pop, a rumble of rock. It’s all jumbled together with riffy guitars and excellent harmonies and although it really shouldn’t work it actually does. There is introspection in some of the lyrics that belies the catchy bridges, and I can’t wait to hear the album now. Or albums. Whatever!

Ginger does his usual emotional vampire thing and feeds off the vibe from the crowd, visibly egged on by Neil and also Nate (bass) and Shane (drums). The better the crowd react the bigger his smile gets and by the end of the night he could almost qualify as a Canadian from Southpark. Or maybe the Joker. Either way, it’s a big grin. There are covers, Status Quo’s ‘Dirty Water’ is a particular highlight, and I have never heard a cowboy version of Queen’s ‘Hammer To Fall’ before. Neil takes the lead on both vocals and guitar a few times, and proves to be something of a talented bastard, if a little impatient during tuning. The encore continues the country rock theme with a cover of The Band’s ‘The Weight’, which again showcases the vocal harmonies on stage. Their own songs are in a similar vein, laid-back groove more than in-yer-face rock but that’s fine. Despite the different style there is a sort of unmistakeable Gingerness about them so it’s all good. The second encore is another cover, ‘Jessica’ by The Allman Brothers which you would probably recognise as the theme to Top Gear. It’s instrumental, and gives them chance to finally really rock out. There should have been a third encore song according to the setlist, The Wildhearts classic ‘Loveshit’, which just happens to be my favourite Wildhearts song. Unfortunately, curfews meant it had to get dropped but you know what? The rest of the set was so good I wasn’t even disappointed. Tonight was a breath of fresh air, a change of direction and a grand way to spend an evening.