REVIEW: The Best of Billy Ocean 2018 Tour

Waterfront Hall, Belfast

Thur 11 Oct, 2018

Following last year’s sell-out concert at the venue, soul legend, Billy Ocean, may have returned to Belfast’s Waterfront Hall to a slightly smaller capacity crowd, but the welcome and the atmosphere remained as electric as ever for this much-loved musical hero.

Ahead of performances in Florida and a full UK and European tour, the 68 year old singer kicked his Best of Billy Ocean 2018 tour off in style and kept the party going for a full 90 minutes with a selection of some of his biggest hits from throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Appropriately starting off with Are You Ready? (as if there was ever any doubt judging by the noisy and loving reaction of his (mostly female) fans of a certain age!).

During the next few numbers, Ocean, immaculately dressed in a blue suit, teased and entertained them with some fancy footwork as he moved across the stage in his signature shuffle-style of dancing before launching into one of his earliest hits from the summer of 1976, Love Really Hurts Without You.

This brought the entire camera-holding crowd to their feet for the first of many times during the evening with the mood being quickly changed by the first ballad of the night in an extended version of The Colour Of Love.
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Perfectly backed by his 5-piece band (special mention to his brilliant saxophonist!) and three female backing singers, including his daughter, Cherie, Ocean continued with Bob Marley’s reggae anthem, No Woman, No Cry, providing one of the show’s biggest sing-a-longs and being followed by one of its biggest dance-a-longs with Red Light Spells Danger.

Before performing the popular ballad, Suddenly, the ever-smiling singer made one fan’s night by giving her a kiss when she approached him with a request.

Although this most genial of performers did not have time to include all of his hits – notable exceptions being L.O.D. (Love on Delivery) and Stop Me (If You’ve Heard It All Before) – he more than made up for it with such showstoppers as the finale songs, When The Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going) and Get Outta My Dreams (Get into My Car).

Sadly, all good things come to an end and this party night of soul, pop, reggae, calypso and gospel finally concluded with the perfect encore choice; his Grammy-winning evergreen, Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run).

Damien Murray

Photography by Marta Janiszewska