Live Review: Rick Astley – 17th December 2024 – Royal Albert Hall, London, UK

The festive season was in full swing mode on Tuesday night as one of the countries most loved entertainers brought his Swingin’ Christmas show back to the regal Royal Albert Hall for another year.

Rick Astley may be best known for that signature dance or releasing a myriad of pop juggernaut’s in the 80’s including Never Gonna Give You Up, Together Forever and Whenever You Need Somebody but it was an entirely different affair on Tuesday, with Rick comically telling the crowd after a performance of Cole Porters’ I’ve Got You Under My Skin, “did you think you were gonna hear Together Forever? Well, you ain’t” before confessing, “but you might hear Never Gonna Give You Up near the end, if you behave”.

Over the course of a solid 2 hours with a brief 15 minute interval in the middle where the superstar and posterboy of 80’s production team Stock Aitken Waterman encouraged the crowd to head out and grab a cocktail, fans got to experience a whole different type of vocalist and performer as the iconic hitmaker delivered a truly astounding set full of Swing hits and Christmas classics to an overflowing Royal Albert Hall venue; every seat filled and a line of punters filling every spare standing space in the very top, nose-bleed section of the historic concert venue.

With Christmas lights draped beautifully around the world-famous venues box level interior, and with two large Christmas trees providing a frame for the large ‘Christmas At The Royal Albert Hall’, display overhead, a 13 member big band added a grand 1920’s-esque feel to the evening.

Cracking the lid on the night with powerful back-to-back swing performances of Come Fly With Me, Cheek to Cheek and a swaying cover of Jerome Kern’s The Way You Look Tonight, his band were lit up by a number of cozy looking street lamps and Hollywood style spotlights as they played the most perfect instrumental backbone to the nights jazzy set.

“My dad loved Frank Sinatra. That’s why I sing these songs to be honest. My mum likes Frank Sinatra but when he went Latin”, Astley told the crowd before flexing his Portuguese language skills on Girl From Ipanema and pretending to play percussion on a set of drums placed strategically at the front of the stage before revealing its true purpose: a disguised bar where he would return to frequently during the show to shake up some cocktails.

Dressed in a tuxedo for the first half of the show before changing into a white jacked for the second, Astley was every bit the refined and dapper stage performer. “Tom Ford or Marks and Spencer’s… you’ll never know”, Astley joked as he kept the night on a constant high, delivering classic after classic while handing out cocktails to each member of the band throughout the show, as well as a fan or two near the front of the stage.

There are moments in the show that standout above others and those are when Astley’s voice in on full display. A goosebump inducing cover of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Some Enchanted Evening, with Astley crooning to a gentle piano backing before transforming into a big bang spectacle, showed off the musician’s impeccable vocals the most in the night as they rang through the venue before an equally memorable performance of George Gershwin’s ‘S Wonderful.

With Christmas a week away, festive numbers during the night included Winter Wonderland, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town and his own recorded cover of Nat King Cole Trio’s The Christmas Song.

Astley’s smooth tones lent themselves perfectly to the swing genre and the jazz-scented Christmas classics that were offered up by the bucketload as he shuffled his way through some of the Swing genres most iconic numbers with an effortless swagger in his step, confidently pacing himself around the stage with a cocktail in hand.

Taking us back in time before the number with a career anecdote, Astley walked us through the moment Pete Waterman first presented the star with the idea of covering Nat King Cole’s iconic hit, When I Fall In Love during the early years of his career – admitting to resisting the urge of “running to hide in the nearest cupboard” whenever he hears the song, citing Cole as one of the greatest singers of all time when comparing the two versions.

Nearing the end of the set, a promised token 80’s staple was offered up with Never Gonna Give You Up getting every member of the crowd on their feet and dancing along to the crooner as he opened the number with a crowd singalong in acapella style before launching into a full pop performance that Astley is so well known for. “I’ve sung this song at more weddings than you can imagine, including my daughter’s”, he confessed before dishing up the 80’s classic.

It was a night of festive Swing perfection by one of the countries most cherished stage performers who has as much energy in his bones as that 21 year old we were introduced to back inn 1987. A fantastic way to close out our gig-going evenings for 2024.

Setlist
Set 1:
Come Fly With Me (Sammy Cahn cover)
Cheek to Cheek (Irving Berlin cover)
The Way You Look Tonight (Jerome Kern cover)
Strangers in the Night (Bert Kaempfert cover)
Winter Wonderland (Richard Himber cover)
Girl From Ipanema
Agua de Beber (Frank Sinatra cover)
I’ve Got You Under My Skin (Cole Porter cover)
The Lady Is a Tramp (Rodgers & Hart cover)
As Time Goes By (Herman Hupfeld cover)
When I Fall in Love (Victor Young and His Orchestra cover)
Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (Harry Reser and His Orchestra cover)
Luck Be a Lady (Frank Loesser cover)

Set 2:
You Make Me Feel So Young (Josef Myrow cover)
Fly Me to the Moon (Kaye Ballard cover)
Some Enchanted Evening (Rodgers & Hammerstein cover)
‘S Wonderful (George Gershwin cover)
How About You? (Burton Lane cover)
The Christmas Song (The Nat King Cole Trio cover)
This Christmas (Donny Hathaway cover)
They Can’t Take That Away From Me
You’re Nobody till Somebody Loves You (Russ Morgan cover)
I Get a Kick Out of You (Cole Porter cover)
Never Gonna Give You Up
White Christmas (Irving Berlin cover)