Dave Stewart's love letter to Sunderland as he debuts new music at The Fire Station

There can be few Brit, Ivor Novello, Grammy and Golden Globe winners who reference Penshaw Hill and Barnes in their music.

But Dave Stewart, who’s sold no less than 100m records over the past four decades, has never forgotten his very Mackem roots.

Ours is a city that shaped him.

A self-confessed “wayward” child, he immersed himself in the small Bohemian community of ‘60s Sunderland, hanging out at places like West One and Sgt Pepper's and found a new form of expression in fashion and music after his dreams of playing for the Black Cats were dashed by injury.

London’s bright lights came calling where fate would lead him to a restaurant where Annie Lennox worked, going on to form The Eurythmics with the singer and creating music that defined an era.

Even at the height of his global fame, he’d come home, getting heckled on High Street West along the way - one of many anecdotes he shares as part of his The Way It Was Back Then shows.

Last night’s gig was the first of two nights at The Fire Station - one of the star’s favourite venues - and it’s treating fellow Mackems to the first listen of tracks from the album of the same name.

He’s been dubbed The Ringmaster and for these shows he’s corralled a stellar band of musicians, with Futureheads frontman Barry Hyde as musical director on keys, rising Sunderland singer Isabel Maria on background vocals and from Tom A. Smith’s band, the excellent Katie Anderson on bass guitar and Hannah Smith on keys.

And flying in from LA - Dave’s son Sam on guitars and Jesse Samler on drums.

It was the first time the 10 album tracks, the result of spontaneous one-take recordings, have been performed live, but with some rooted in Sunderland it couldn’t be a more fitting debut.

Ever in his element in the spotlight, clad in his trademark Fedora and denim, Dave warns us this is a night of happy and sad songs that span the decades, from the streets of Sunderland to living in a squat in London and touring the world many times over.

Title track The Way It Was Back Then is a Bob Dylan-esque acknowledgement of the very universal truth that nothing *is* the way it was back then, a longing for the past many of us share.

The House Where I Was Born, meanwhile, is more of a direct love letter to Sunderland and the memories it holds for the 74-year-old.

Last year, he managed to find an Air BnB on the very street he lived until he was nine - Barnard Street in Barnes - and it sparked the track and its deeply personal lyrics such as “Looking down, from the heights of Penshaw Hill, Down to the river, where the big old ships were built,” and “I miss you, Dad.”

Even the album cover is a wonderfully nostalgic shot of a young Dave kicking a ball about, as captured on his dad’s 8mm cine camera on that patch of land next to Barnes Park, which people from that area will be familiar with.

Much like that candid shot, the songs feel intimate, personal, filled with memories and ghosts of the past.

They were brought to life on the big stage for the first time beautifully by the assembled band.

They can’t have had much time to rehearse - a session in The Peacock the day before - but this was world class levels of musicianship, as you would expect from the perfectionist producer.

At one point there seems to be an impromptu Mackem remodel of Waterloo Sunset, with the line “whenever we gaze on the River Wear, we are in paradise.”

Dave’s incredible ear for music has seen him produce albums and co-write songs with the likes of Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Tom Petty, Gwen Stefani, Katy Perry, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, and Joss Stone, to name but a few.

After all the success, all the awards, all the adulation - how refreshing that he’s never forgotten being the boy from Barnes who loved kicking a ball about with his dad.

*Dave Stewart plays The Fire Station tonight, Tuesday, September 15. Limited tickets remaining here.

*The Way It Was Back Then album is released on September 18.