Pop’s pub poet is back on form
The Streets Brixton Academy
Grand master of boozy melancholia and creator of at least one era-defining album, The Streets’ Mike Skinner gave it all up in 2011 when he felt he had no creative avenues left to tread. His debut, 2002’s Original Pirate Material, had introduced the world to his garage-inflected hip hop with poetic yet geezerish lyrics inspired by everything from the film Gladiator to drinking sessions down the pub. Four more albums followed, dissecting what it was to be young, British, anxious and wild. Now, seven years later, he’s swaggering back to the stage as part of a Streets tour that’s not quite a reunion, not quite a comeback and perhaps best described as a victory lap complete with shaken-up champagne and a right old knees-up.
While some Noughties legends have booked huge dates to rehash seminal albums (Interpol, Bloc Party), The Streets have opted for a three-night residency at Brixton’s O2 Academy. Rather than a cynical cash-in, Skinner seems to be drawing a line under his past while hinting at things to come. From the tremulous strings of Turn
the Page to the rolling drum fills at the end of Everything Is Borrowed, the crowd were not above belting out every element of every track. Beer flew, rollies sparked up and it began to feel like 2002 at the student union again.
Skinner’s familiar Brummie beat poet style can sound aged because he defined and drove forward an era of pop with songs like Dry Your Eyes. Others, such as Fit But You Know It don’t necessarily sit comfortably in the post-lad, #Metoo era. Not that the crowd, made up mostly of ageing lads on a big night out, minded when Skinner and his five-piece band spliced Fit But You Know It with Arctic Monkeys’ I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor as a raucous show closer.
The rampant nostalgia of the set overshadowed the handful of new tracks shoehorned into the encore. While on top form tonight, directing the crowd like a virtuoso, Skinner seems aware that things have moved on but is not necessarily confident about his vague forays into the grime scene that has taken centre stage in The Streets’ absence.
Having been ahead of the curve, he now finds himself somewhere behind it. But there could still be a place for the insouciant honesty of his lyrics in a time when mental health and social issues are front and centre. Boys Will Be Boys, the only new pure Streets track he played, is a scathing grimeinflected take on toxic masculinity. “Tear the f------ roof off, Brixton,” Skinner commanded as the heavy beat rumbled through the Academy – and the crowd did as they were told.