You’ve got to hand it to this punk band
I’ve seen them so many times I’ve lost count, and the only criticism I’d ever level is that sometimes – particularly with an 11-year gap between their last two albums – their sets can sometimes be a bit samey.
That can’t be said on this Down To The Bone tour, as they rang the changes right from the start.
Wait And See was a track from the Nobody’sHeroesalbum,waybackin1980,and it must be 15 years now since they played it live.
Here they started with it, and it sounded just as good as it did all those years ago. “You’renotgoodenoughtobeadanceband … we’ll show them”, indeed.
Nobody’s Hero and Gotta Getaway followed,makingforablisteringopening,and then they threw in another of the night’s curveballs,Can’tBelieveInYou,from1994’s Get A Life album.
Most of the songs you would expect at an SLF live show were present and correct:BarbedWireLove,WastedLife,AtThe Edge, and My Dark Places, Burns’s uplifting anthem from the last album about his fightagainstdepressionwhichhasbecome a set staple.
But there were other surprises too: the returnof(ICouldBe)Happyyesterdayfrom 1997’s Tinderbox album, and a new song, Tilting At Windmills, inspired by Brexit and the fact America, as Burns put it “collectively lost its mind” by electing Donald Trump as president.
The highlights for me came mid-set when Is That What We Fought The War For?Wasfollowedby“asongwe stole from The Specials”, Doesn’t Make It Alright. The closing double whammy of Tin Soldiers and Suspect Device was flowed by perennial encore pairing Johnny Was and Alternative Ulster, and then they were gone, leaving the crowd – which seems to get younger, as well as older, if that makes sense – exhausted, hoarse and very happy.