Few artists can command an audience for two hours sitting on a rug and performing their greatest hits on an acoustic guitar. Yet this is clearly the natural habitat for Donovan who performed to a packed house at Cardiff’s New Theatre on Monday evening.
The singer/songwriter who clocked up no less than eight Top 10 hits between 1965 to 1968 gave the audience an authentic 60s style concert.
Opening with his 1965 debut Catch the Wind, Donovan encouraged the audience to indulge in the art of “community singing” before he launched into a fabulous harmonica solo.
Songs such as Colours, Jennifer Juniper and Buffy Saint Marie's Universal Soldier were interspersed with tales about the mission that both he and fellow songwriter Gypsy Dave planned on popular culture on the beaches of Cornwall in 1963. Later, he revealed they would become victims of The Drug Squad’s first busts. There were also stories of going to India to find inspiration and enlightenment with The Beatles and how his comic song The Intergalactic Laxative was inspired by a children’s TV programme following the first moon landing.
The concert also featured a performance of his beautiful song The Promise, which he said he will never record, making Donovan's rare live performance even more extra special.
“The idea of the 50th anniversary for me is to come out and thank you,” Donovan told his audience at the end of the evening before treating them to renditions of Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow. I, like many others was glad he did. Thank you Donovan for adding to life’s great soundtrack!
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