Hecklergigs – Duke Special @ The Cluny, Newcastle – Feb 7

After giving praise to Duke Special for months on end via picking him out for our MySpace Trawl feature and giving him one of our albums of the year awards for his debut Songs From The Deep Forest, we decided that we had to check him out on the live circuit.

And indeed we did. Once again after getting through the streets of Byker (No it's not where Byker Grove is made, it's actually made somewhere much rougher) through getting bad advice from people in the corner shop, old people and gormless students, we finally arrived at The Cluny to check out the mighty Duke Special perform to a sold out audience. 

The music that Duke Special makes doesn’t just appeal to one particular scene or person. It was like putting your hand in a mixed bag of sweets on Wednesday night as just about every sort of person was inside the venue. Be it your young NME influenced reader, parents thinking they were hip and cool with their youngsters, trendy-looking twentysomethings and our personal favourite type of gig-goer - the older generation. One bloke in particular sported a full-grown fuzzy grey beard with a lovely matching jumper to match.  

The odd but cool thing about The Cluny is the way the stage is set out. When you enter the gig room via the pub, the stage is not directly in front of you. If, like us, you want to get near the front, you have to walk down a mini flight of steps and only then you can see the stage. With a capacity of around 200, it’s a very intimate place for gigs. High profile bands like Maximo Park have recently played there, which has done wonders for the venue getting that little bit more publicity for itself. 

Following the two support acts - Elaine Palmer and Stepanie Dosen - who quietened a frenzied audience with their own unique blend of acoustic folksy anthems, arrived Duke Special at around 10pm. Thankfully the venue didn’t shove him off at 11pm sharp - the songs were being pumped out right until 11.30pm and even then his set was not enough to feed the hunger of many fans who kept on demanding him back on stage for an encore, despite the roadies packing up the gear. For those who have bought the album - and if not you really should, it was rated as one of Q Magazine's top albums last year - you will be aware that the artwork is full of happy smiling bears. Why, we aren’t entirely sure but quite fittingly last night, Duke Special and his backing band entered the tiny stage to the quite creepy sounding If You Go Down To the Woods Today which was met with a chorus of laughter, bemusement and the odd singalong. 

After walking on, proceedings swiftly began with the main chunk of the night being dedicated to showcasing the album. Pretty much everything was covered which kept the audience happy as he plunged through the varying emotions of sounds. From the current single Freewheel to old classics like Portrait and the spine-tingling This Could Be My Last Day. Older material was also covered from previous EPs which were later sandwiched together to form the technical debut album Adventures In Gramophone. One of the gig's more touching moments was the cover version of Roy Orbison's You Got It. This was dedicated to a girl in the audience as a request for her wedding anniversary. He'd read about it on his MySpace page.

A mammoth UK tour has just started, and we urge you to go him out. It's not just the songs that are beautiful, but the whole show. The backing band, fronted by Chip Bailey, provide a different way of making music to say the least. Who said whisks were confined to the kitchen… 

For a list of tour dates, visit www.dukespecial.com