By Monk
As I said in the intro to my review of the first gig staged to celebrate this historic year for what many of us regard as “the best little rock club in the arse-end of nowhere”, longevity is a rare commodity in this disposable world, and therefore landmark moments such as a 20th anniversary of putting your heart and soul into something you love definitely, and defiantly, deserve to be marked in joyous style – and what better way to continue this 12-month long party than bringing back another of the many acts who have graced this lovingly bespoke curated stage over the past two decades?
You know what to expect from one of these “songs and stories” style sets from one of the most distinctive voices in modern hard rock: a mixture of big pops, adapted for the solo setting, with a few deep cuts and insightful commentary into same, with a fair sprinkling of banter… And the latter comes early as, after the opening hit of ‘Burning Down Inside’, Vaughn declares “I have two numbers for you: 42 and 21!”, which is met with a suitably rapturous response. Later in the show, Vaughn reveals how he discovered a love of rugby during three years he spent living in Limerick following the initial dissolution of Tyketto (appropriately, said commentary comes just before ‘In The Shadow Of King John’).
Ahead of the show, as is his norm, Vaughn had invited requests from fans, and the first comes right at the start of the show, in the shape of ‘Kelly’s Gone’, from his most recent ‘Myths, Legends & Lies’ solo effort. ‘Reach’, ‘Wings’ and ‘Seasons’ are also early fulfilments, while personal highlights come in the pre-midset trilogy of ‘Monday’, ‘Heaven Tonight’ and the acerbically beautiful ‘Here’s Hoping It Hurts’.
His early years with Waysted are given another rare revisit with ‘Black & Blue’ (which is prefaced with the story of how Pete Way presented him with “three seconds of a chorus” and told him to write a song around it) while another personal highlight is the tale of the ‘Soliders And Sailors On Riverside’, before he brings things to a suitably celebratory conclusion with the upbeat closing triptych of ‘Lay YOur Body Down’, an affectionate cover of ‘The Living Years’ and a suitably roof-raising rendition of ‘Forever Young’.
Before quitting the stage, Vaughn reveals that he has been working on getting Tyketto to play Belfast before the end of the year, something he repeats in conversation after the show: true to his word, as I started typing up this review, details emerged of a show at the city’s Empire Music Hall on 27 November. In the meantime, there are plenty of more celebrations to come at the Diamond Rock Club, and the party still has a lot of life in it… see ya next time Derwin \m/
- Tyketto’s new album, ‘Closer To The Sun‘, will be released on 20 March.
- Tyketto will tour in April:
- They will then appear at the Steelhouse Festival on Sunday 26 July.
- All written content © Über Röck 2026.