10CC @ Entertainment Centre Theatre, Adelaide 2/8/2025
It is nearly forty eight years ago that I last saw 10cc play live. It was at the Apollo Stadium in Richmond and the band, then with Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley, Lol Crème and Graham Gouldman, put on a powerful performance. 10CC is now in the hands of Graham Gouldman, a talent in himself, but could 10cc rise to the heights of 1977.
With Graham are Rick Fenn, who has been on lead guitar in 10cc since 1976, Paul Burgess on drums who first played with the band in 1973, Keith Hayman on keyboards joined in 2007 and new comer Iain Hornal on vocals is the new kid in the band, only joining 2013. This is no tribute band.
With no support band, and to the tune of Graham Gouldman’s Son of Man, 10cc strolled on to the dark stage to take up their instruments for the opening song, The Second Sitting of Supper from the 1975 album Original Sheetmusic. It has been said 10cc were inspired by art and cinema and the opening song, performed in red, moody lighting certainly supports this.
A long, magnificent guitar workout, with echoes of David Gilmour within it, from Rick Fenn opened Art for Art’s Sake after a quick “Good Evening” from Graham Gouldman. The hits followed with Life is a Minestrone and Good Morning Judge.
I counted eight guitars lined up across the front of the stage and they were certainly all used. To prove 10cc were not just a singles band and taking Art Rock to the precipice, The Dean and I provided the first highlight for the evening. The song wove around several riffs during its extended play.
Staying with album tracks, two songs from the 1974 album Sheet Music in Old Wild Men (“Written by young men in a band reflecting what life in a band would be like in their thirties or forties, and here we are in our…well…” commented Graham) and the wacky song Clockwork Creep, about an airplane talking to a bomb on board and the bomb replying.
1977’s Feel the Benefit, a ten-minute showcase, took the band to new heights. Singer Iain Hornal was busy doing vocals, playing percussion, keyboard, assorted wind instruments and various “hitting” instruments.
An amazing talent. In fact, during the evening all members changed instruments at times. Keyboard player, Keith Hayman, played not only keys but often guitar, drummer Paul Burgess came forward and played percussion at the front the stage and even some keyboard. Feel the Benefit gave everyone a chance to showcase their talent.
Graham Gouldman wrote many top ten hits in the 1960’s, before joining 10cc. The Hollies, Herman’s Hermits, The Yardbirds amongst many others benefited from his songs. Graham still has the gift of songwriting as evident by a “new” song Floating in Heaven, a song about the James Webb telescope, on which Queen’s Brian May plays guitar. “Unfortunately, Brian isn’t with us tonight” Graham told us, but Rick filled in superbly.
The hits continued with The Things We Do for Love and Silly Love, complete with silly Status Quo guitar moves (or was that The Shadows) before another highlight in I’m Mandy, Fly Me. It was this song that I remember the most from the 1977 show and the 2025 version almost lived up to the 1977 version. This is classic 10cc at its best.
Everyone was waiting for “The Big Hit”, I’m Not in Love and when the opening backing track started through the P.A., the phones came out. Musically the band nailed it. Vocally, it was lacking a little from the original, but hey, everyone was happy. Dreadlock Holiday closed out the set, complete with the line “I don’t like Adelaide” within the song.
The two encore songs came from 10cc’s 1973 self-titled debut album. Donna was performed A Capella and at first, I thought they were making a joke of the song, but it turns out they were just having fun with it. They then rocked out with Rubber Bullets, probably 10cc’s most rocking song, bringing the entire audience to its feet. It turned into a jam with guitarist Rick Fenn playing off against keyboard player Keith Hayman. All to soon the show was over and we were heading out into the cold Adelaide evening.
The band played with passion. You could see they were enjoying being on stage, sounding out the songs of 10cc. They were not afraid to tackle songs written by Godley and Crème and also to take on album tracks and it was the album tracks that stood out for me.
Friends of mine said the band should be called 2.5cc as three original members were missing, but my friends were not there to see this class act. No one in the Entertainment Centre was complaining about what we got. And that is what live music is all about.
Live Review by Geoff Jenke