Live Review Christopher Cross - Usher Hall Edinburgh 22nd May 2026
If you are looking for an unbiased or critical review of last week’s Christopher Cross show in Edinburgh, this is not for you. I am a confirmed fan-boy, as evidenced in my gushing review for Rockfiend on what I thought at the time would be Christopher’s one-and-only Scottish concert in 2019. (link at the end).
Since then, he’s been very sick and recovered from illness, and now he’s come to my home town to play in the magnificent Usher Hall in front of another enthusiastic audience – a fitting stage for his talents.
To start the evening, Chris Difford from Squeeze ambled on for a hilarious stand-up comedy routine interspersed with some groovy Squeeze tunes performed solo acoustically. His name-dropping stories are as funny as, particularly when talking about some of the “wankers” he met when filming Top of the Pops back in the day, and playing darts with Peters & Lee (allegedly)! The “Deptford Dylan” isn’t that marvellous a singer, but his historical South London musical street poetry is still first-class, with ‘Up the Junction’ and ‘Cool for Cats’ being particularly well-received. A national treasure, bless ‘im.
The stage was already set up with a giant backdrop of “that” album cover. The flamingo has long been the easily-recognisable symbol for Christopher’s music, but I’m not sure how appropriate it is really. The exotic pink birds are nice to look at obviously, but they’re also a bit smelly, make a dreadful honking noise and are famous for standing on one leg, so maybe Jethro Tull might have been more appropriate? Apparently, Christopher had the album art work long before the first album was made and the rest, as they say, is history.
That self-titled debut was released a few months after my 18th birthday on 27th December 1979, so effectively, it was the first great album of the 1980s. For me, it is one of two “perfect” albums that I own; every song is genuinely great, and there are some all-time classics on there, but as well as Christopher’s own performance, it also features the very best backing singers and musicians of the day and it is beautifully produced. The only other album that gets a “perfect” rating from me is ‘Bat out of Hell’ by the way.
Although all the songs from the debut album were played, the show opens with the brilliant ‘All Right’ from the excellent follow-up ‘Another Page’. There’s a very cool jazzy feel to the arrangement and that continues throughout the set, with groovy bass, classy piano and whiplash-smart drumming, and of course, the ever-present Andy Suzuki blowing the sax and other assorted horn-style thingies to great effect. When the great man starts to sing, the timbre of his voice is unmistakable, but sensibly, he’s got three very fine lady backing vocalists along to share the heavy lifting and his guitar playing is still outstanding too.
The whole set is deliciously laid-back, fragrant and “yachty” in the best of ways. A short acoustic interlude includes ‘Spinning’, ‘Words of Wisdom’ and ‘Back of My Mind’ from the 1988 album of the same name. If you happen to paint the Mona Lisa on your first trip to an artists’ studio then it’s good news and bad news. Your finest work will be immortal but everything else will be in the shade by comparison, no matter how good. Christopher actually has a flamboyance of flamingo-covered albums and they are all full of juicy goodness. He seems to be at peace with that, judging by his self-deprecating comments and his joking reference to any “weirdo obsessives” in the crowd that might recognise ‘Dreamers’ from the flamingo-less ‘Doctor Faith’ album from 2011, although he did note that it was currently trending on Spotify for some reason - “whatever that means”!
Of the classics, ‘Sailing’ evokes swoony noises from the mature audience and ‘Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) is the most filmed, but all of the not-so-deep cuts are absolutely gorgeous in their re-mastered form. It ends, of course, with ‘Ride Like the Wind’ which even provokes some unwise dancing in the aisles, but everyone goes home happy.
Earlier this month, Christopher celebrated his 75th birthday with a show at L’Olympia in Paris which was recorded for posterity. With Alan Parsons on production duties, it should emerge as a live album shortly. It should be a fine record of a classic artist and I hope we will see him back on these shores again some time.