Gig Review: The Dreaming Spires - St.George's Hall, Bewdley. Saturday 15th November 2025

With its hordes of Brummie summer visitors and propensity to flood, Bewdley is far from a normal town. However, for one night only it became one, twinned with Didcot in Oxfordshire. Now, Didcot is a normal town as proved by the metrics and such an honour is ripe for commemoration. Step up a band soaked in Oxfordshire tradition to write a concept album based on hometown normalcy. 2025 has seen The Dreaming Spires storm back into the spotlight after a lengthy hiatus. The year began with an AMA UK showcase in Hackney (not that the band needed such a reminder exercise) and climaxed with the release of the album Normal Town in November. This brings us right up to date and the concluding night of the album launch tour in Bewdley. 

St.George’s Hall has been kind to the Bennett brothers over the last decade. Almost ten years to the day, it hosted The Dreaming Spires celebrating the most recent previous album Searching for the Supertruth. This evening was Joe’s fifth visit and Robin’s fourth. The extra appearance was playing with Danny George Wilson in 2022. Apart from everyone being ten years older since the Bewdley debut, the sound has evolved from straight up Americana rock ‘n’ roll to more home spun post-industrial. A genre born in Didcot set to spread far! During their 90 minutes on stage the four-piece for the evening featured both sides, first playing Normal Town in its running order entirety then dealing the hits. 

It was a brave move to schedule the show like this but we were in nothing to lose territory. What worked about the performance was Robin’s song introductions and close observation of the intrinsic parts working together to compose such a fascinating record. First up was the influence of keyboard player Thomas Collison tweaking some buttons to inject an atmospheric sound to opening song and title track Normal Town. Watching Jamie Dawson sending the cues and varying the beat from behind the drum kit ensured each song had its perfect framework. The bass of Joe Bennett is legendary in multiple bands and integral to anything The Dreaming Spires do. Finally, Robin Bennett’s refined vocals and ability to write observational burners continues to mature and follow fresh paths. 

Normal Town is an interesting album. Initial plays are drawn to a posse of songs in the first half that lodge more memorably in the mind. The delightfully insightful ‘21^st Century Light Industrial’ and the superbly escalating ‘Stolen Car’ were prime examples of both excelling on record and live in St. George’s Hall. The first of these could easily have been a Bennett Wilson Poole song, one of the music projects keeping Robin active duringThe Dreaming Spires break. The second half of the album exposes a more nuanced depth and takes time to extract its worth. Listening intently live plus the accompanying introductions helped formulate the appreciation. The best parts were the rousing ending to ‘These Days Will End’ and the evocative acoustic tones to ‘Real Life’. The latter echoes sounds of a 70s Mid West American folk rock band spilling out onto a festival field. 

The American-Canadian influence, especially the triangulation of Petty-Springsteen-Young, has always featured in the Bennett brothers output. After an in-depth sharing of the new album, the pair reverted to an acoustic duo to play a version of ‘Atlantic City’ off Springsteen’s Nebraska album. A record in-vogue as per the recent movie. The quartet were quickly reunited to rally the hall with upbeat numbers like 'Everything All The Time’, ‘All Kinds of People’ and ‘Still Believe in You’. There was even a different slant to The Dreaming Spires with the encore lending its spot to ‘Paisley Overground’. No show is complete with the Anglo-American anthem ‘Dusty in Memphis’. This superbly relatable classic epitomises everything about The Dreaming Spires, wholly homegrown yet with a glint to what happens across the pond. 

The most positive news on the night were plans for the Music in the Hall team to re-instate the regular touring band shows in the new year. This was a popular feature from 2015 to the pandemic with many fine artists from the UK and beyond gracing the stage. Locals embraced the evenings as well as music fans travelling from nearby Birmingham and the West Midlands. These nights also platformed youth talent such as the locally based prodigious pianist-vocalist invited to open this show. Luke Pender played an half hour set of popular covers with such voice dexterity and piano excellence that you felt in the presence of something special. Expect to hear a lot more of him in the future with surely a destiny of a formal musical education looming. 

While you respect any decision an artist makes regarding where they channel their energies, there is a resounding feeling of joy that The Dreaming Spires are back in full throttle. The Bennett brothers light up anything they put their hands to and nights like in Bewdley confirm it. You could describe it as a ‘normal town’ for one night only especially as the flood barriers seemed to work.