On Saturday 15th August 2026 myself and my sidekick Scotty attended the Holly Johnson gig at the Piece Hall in Halifax.
Prior to the gig, Scotty confessed he was more excited about seeing the support acts, Heaven 17 and ABC. He was unsure about how good Holly, the former Frankie Goes to Hollywood frontman, would perform!
So how did it turn out? Well for starters, both of the support acts were very good and the crowd was very much enamoured by their performances. I had seen Heaven 17 in 2025 in Leeds so, I had high expectations and, I wasn’t disappointed. The only minor irritation was that they only got chance to be on stage for around twenty-five minutes and perform five songs, including the epic “Temptation” which ate up a fair share of their allotted time.
It had been around twenty-five years since I last saw ABC live and, I aren’t convinced that was the full band. This time they were allocated around forty-five minutes and despite singer Martyn Fry not wearing his famed gold lame suit, they put on a really good show and rounded things off with their big hits from the “Lexicon of Love” album.
When Holly came on stage it was to a rousing response and the scene was set with a taster of what was to come with the instrumental “The World is My Oyster” mixed in with a segment of “Relax”.
The majority of his set comprised Frankie Goes to Hollywood songs mixed in with his solo hits and included the famed cover versions of Edwin Starr’s “War” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”. Both these tracks were featured on Frankie’s “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” album and were very well received on the evening.
These two preceded performances of “Relax” and “Two Tribes”, the songs that most fans were probably most looking forward to hearing along with “The Power of Love” which was the encore track.
I have to say I was very impressed with Holly’s vocals. I think Scotty’s biggest concern was that the quality of his voice was going to be substandard however, he didn’t seem to have lost a step since his halcyon days in the 1980s. Scotty said he was really happy with his voice and the show overall.
I knew pretty much every song he performed other than about three or four tracks. Of those songs I very much enjoyed “Penny Arcade” and “This Was Me” which was written by The Feeling. “Penny Arcade” was inspired by the 1970s television documentary “Johnny Go Home” about the exploitation of runaway youths in London.
My favourite song overall would be a toss-up between “Warriors of the Wasteland” and “Rage Hard”. I also really like “Love Train” from his solo catalogue.
Would I go and see him again? Probably not but I would say I was really happy to have seen him live.
I would give this gig a rating of four stars out of five.
