Edwyn Collins

Manchester Albert Hall

Oct 7th 2025

Live review

Of course, we were simply thrilled honey, to be immersed in the wonderful world of Edwyn Collins for one last time on his farewell tour. In an evening of indie classic, deep cuts and songs that have resonated through the decades, the masterful songwriter held the audience in the palm of his hands and every song that he announced was greeted like a much loved old friend with a heartwarming joy

Tonight is, of course, a celebration.

It’s a heartwarming lap of honour and a chance to look at the nu sonic snapshots of youth with polaroid songs that stand the test of time before slipping away across the universe. What was once the brave new future is now nostalgia for an age yet to come, and as the songs disappear into the ether for one last time, the audience celebrates Edwyn, whose hilarious between-song banter makes sure nothing gets too holy. 

In the past twenty years, since his stroke in 2005 that would have felled many a mighty oak, the much loved singer somehow patched together his music career and come back with the soul power of his wife Grace, creating a modern miracle that, despite his condition, saw him carry on and fully deserve the affection.

The post stroke career was was so life affirming that it’s hard to believe that this is the final tour. There is not a dry eye in the house as Edwyn shuffles across the stage to his seat -defiant, sharp suited and eloquently roguish as ever to deliver a spectacular set of hits and much loved deep cuts with a razor tight band.

The songs remain a defiant timeless pop classic, and that voice fills the room with a resonant swoon and remains the luxury croon that walks the tightrope between a joyful sarcasm and a melodic, soulful resonance. Still sounding like the elixir of lost youth,  the Edwyn croon somehow, despite the years and despite everything, has never sounded better. It’s big, warm overtones peel back the years as it embraces and celebrates all the phases in Edwyn’s sonic adventures.

Adventures that began in 1976 with Glasgow art school punk band the Nu Sonics before morphing  into the frantic indie pop perfection of Orange Juice and those four early singles that pioneered an infused indie that would spark the Glasgow scene, Creation Records and perhaps the Smiths and many other fellow travellers.  As the set list peels back and those short sharp shocks of early indie classic are fired out, I close my eyes and remember those much treasured early eighties Orange Juice shows at the long gone Rafters just down the road from tonight’s venue. There were idealistic gigs back in the days of skinny young men on stage in tartan shirts representing the ground breaking Glasgow indie Postcard Records run by the ferocious aesthetic idealist Alan Horne whilst operating under the perfect ‘the sound of young Scotland’ slogan. The label, with its iconic cat banging a drum logo, was armed with a stable of bands including Josef K and Aztec Camera, making it fleetingly the greatest of the indie labels in the post-punk adventures. 

Tonight’s set underlines this with outings for some of the early singles that still sound timeless with their mix of VU, Spiral Scratch and the route out of punk via the Subway Sect. The songs full of that elixir mix of energy, charm, treble guitars and high up the neck bass lines have rendered themselves timeless. Falling and Laughing, Felicity and Blue Boy remain the sound of youth creating a template before the band were snaffled up by the majors for the perfect pop crossovers of the effortless sole top ten smash of Rip It Up and other cuts from when Orange Juice’s perfect pop was too perfect to be pop! 

There are also outings for his post OJ solo years with the classic songwriting, the nu soul twists, the cheeky quips and the mixture of deep cut classic and knowing crate digging winks and the eternal cult status of the much loved singer building up to his 1994 worldwide hit, A Girl like You. The song remains the anthem with its mix of classic melody over northern soul dancehall vibes delivered with a luscious croon and decorated with hypnotic guitar work outs in a slice of classic crate digging pop. Greeted like an old friend it has the audience on their feet jiving and peeling back the years to the point where its hard to remember how it wasn’t an instant hit on release. As the song echoes around the room it reminds me of the uphill battle involved in getting the Melody Maker, who I was writing for after Sounds went bust, to let me interview Edwyn, who they saw as yesterday’s man in the weeks before the single started its slow climb to the top of the charts.

As he disappears off the stage to a standing ovation no-one in the room would begrudge a change of mind. Pop this good is too precious, and the mystical magnetism of its prime purveyors like Edwyn is too rare to discard but if this is truly the end than tonight was a perfect final curtain for one of the pied pipers of post punk.