Vince Bell at the Southgate Inn, February 25 2024

Ian Diddams

Regular readers of Devizine may be well accustomed to hearing the name “Vince Bell”. For those less frequent readers or those that have recently moved to this particular corner of the universe, grab a cuppa and sit back …

Vince is a Devizes based singer-songwriter of excellent – and well deserved – local repute. He hides his substantial light under a huge bushel (and it needs to be huge to hide his phenomenal talent) but rest assured, if you don’t already know, when you see a gig of his advertised then it’s a gig worth cancelling weddings, baptisms, bar mitzvahs and other sundry celebrations for, in order to get down to.

Where do you start to review a gig by Vince, when that path has already been beaten by others before?

My Oasis of Calm… Vince Bell at the Southgate Devizes – devizine.com

REVIEW – Tamsin Quin & Vince Bell @ The Southgate, Devizes – Sunday 26th June 2022 – devizine.com

A Detonation at the Southgate with Vince, Tamsin, Phil and Jamie – devizine.com

Jamie, Tamsin, Phil, Vince and Ed Too; Five Go Adventuring to The Southgate – devizine.com

REVIEW –Vince Bell – 7th July 2019 @ The White Bear, Devizes – devizine.com

The more eagle eyed and inquisitive amongst you will have noted the above rather neatly represents a review every year since 2019… and so, I find the niche for this review…. One for 2024 and thus to keep the tradition alive.

Vince was just… well… Vince. In the Oxford English Dictionary, under “Sublime” it merely says “See Vince Bell”. True.

Vince pens his own bitter-sweet songs about life, relationships and family with complex fingering and philosophical lyrics. It has been said of him, that he has enough lyrics in just one song for an entire album (© Fraser Tilley) and certainly Vince is not one to use half a dozen lines when several dozen will do even better. But in between his own works Vince throws in a cover or two – but these are no ordinary covers… these are Vince Bell covers, covers like you never heard before. Vince may take another’s song, but he makes it all his own. At times, it’s difficult to tell if the cover is a cover particularly if it’s from one of his personal favourite musicians which may not be Radio 2 material and globally familiar.

Back to Vince’s music. Some older songs of his, some newer. Including one of his latest pieces, a work in progress he is anxious to point out, to celebrate the recent publication by friend, Sorrel Pitts, of her new book “Broken Shadows.” Naturally, as ever, it is as … well… sublime as everything else Vince writes and plays.

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The late afternoon soon swept past as it is wont to do and as the set end approached Vince asked the crowd which of his two particularly light-hearted songs we would like to hear – “Spiderman Pyjamas” or “Devizes Song.” The answer was obvious of course – there could only be one answer…. BOTH! And Vince duly provided. Like everything Vince writes of course these are not however just light-hearted pieces. Listen to the lyrics properly and they tell hugely poignant tales. Nothing from Vince is just a glossy façade … everything has onion skins of depth if you take the time to go peeling within them… with surgical precision … so to speak.

From an old man at his table, to what real heroes are …