The War Against Intelligence

Classic Grand, Glasgow

Andrew Butler has seen his collective drawn from the New York club, art and fashion scenes mushroom in both popularity and acclaim since the release of their debut album in March, yet aside from a few hometown warm-ups, this British tour is their introduction to playing live.

Vintage (as in age, rather than quality) feature on Jimmy Cliff ahead of his Triptych appearance in 2002 - or thereabouts). The forty minute phone call to Jamaica cost a small fortune.

Few music films provide anything more than the most ephemeral of entertainment, yet there are a handful that serve as important pieces of social documentary as well. D.A. Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back,” Don Letts’ “Punk Rock: The Movie” and the early eighties’ hip-hop movie, “Style Wars” all captured a sense of the social and political climate of the time as well a s featuring some great music. 1973’s “The Harder They Come” performed exactly the same function for reggae music, and in doing so brought what had been, until that point an indigenous Jamaican music scene to the attention of the world.

Its star, Jimmy Cliff, makes his first ever visit to Scotland in a musical career that has spanned thirty eight years to introduce and talk about the film as part of the impending Trip Tych festival, and remains enthusiastic about this piece of his past.

“I look back on it and think that it does capture the spirit and feeling of the people in Jamaica at the time,” he says, “and I think that was why it was a success at the time and an important document now. The character I played was kind of a rebel on the wrong side of the law who was seeking independence and freedom, which I think was the same as a lot of the people at the time. The Rastafarian movement had a lot of the same values and was becoming increasingly important, and the music was another fresh and vibrant part of the whole Jamaican culture. So the film, I think covered musical, social, political and cultural matters.”

At the time of its release Cliff had already established himself as a successful international artist and lived in London during the later part of the sixties when he was signed to Chris Blackwell’s Island Records, and enjoying his first international hit in Brazil in 1968 with “Wonderful World, Beautiful People.” Even so, he had no idea of the film’s initial impact. Its opening in Kingston attracted 30 000 people trying to get a ticket and a glimpse of its star, while similar events took place around the world.

“I guess when we were making the film, we were aware of the interest in it,” he recalls, “but I thought that a lot of that was down to the fact the character was a kind of historical Jamaican figure and that not many films were made in Jamaica at that time. When it came out it was totally amazing. It did a lot to take the music (the soundtrack includes songs by The Maytals, Desmond Dekker and Scotty as well as Cliff’s title track and one of his most renowned songs, “Many Rivers to Cross”) of Jamaica to the rest of the world, and I remember the opening of the film in London and Hollywood as well. The opening in Notting Hill Gate was mad, but it seemed to attract people from all over, not just the West Indian community and that was a great feeling.”

It could have been the start of a career in acting for Cliff, but a combination of his music career, which was at its peak around this time, and the lack of suitable roles has limited his subsequent output. A concert/ documentary, “Bongo Man” came out in 1980, and Channel 5 viewers may have recently caught sight of the rather inglorious appearance of Cliff with Peter O’Toole and Robin Williams in 1986’s “Club Paradise.” It did, however, re-ignite some interest in Cliff’s music in America.

“I had always loved acting,” he says, “and at school I was probably more interested in acting than I was in music, but I guess it is just the way things work out. I got noticed doing ‘The Harder They Come’ and was offered other roles, but I didn’t think that they were right. They all seemed to be like less interesting versions of the character I had already played.”

Tellingly, Cliff’s increasingly infrequent appearances in Britain (he has not played for nearly ten years) do not mean that he has stopped working. This is the first year that he has not spent the majority of his time on the road, as he has started work on a sequel to “The Harder They Come.” His global appeal is reflected in both his touring venues and the fact that, as well as London, he has lived at various times in Brazil and Senegal, before returning to Jamaica.

“I have tended to go where I have been most excited by the music and there has been a market for what I do,” he says. “Every year I tour in the States for about three months, but I also go regularly to Brazil and Argentina, the Far East and Africa.”

“The period I stayed in Brazil was very exciting because I made a few records that tried to fuse what I do with Brazilian music, and it was much the same when I was in Africa. I was really blown away by the music I was hearing young people in Senegal and Mali make. People like Youssou N’Dour: the whole scene was very young and aspiring and there was a freshness about it. I sang with a lot of these people in clubs, and felt that they were doing similar things for African music that we had been doing for the music of Jamaica twenty years before.”

Looking back on his career, Cliff is reluctant to pick out particular highlights, preferring to talk of the diversity of places, people and situations that he has encountered in the period.

“I’m at a stage now when I am never going to be able or want to do anything else apart from my music,” he says, “but when I look back on it I have enjoyed all the periods of my career for different reasons. The early period in Jamaica was a bit of a hardship, but the experience of recording for the first time and being paid a shilling for the song was something that I really appreciated. Then, coming to Britain was another challenge, because I was touring with British musicians that didn’t really know ska or rocksteady music and had to adapt to a whole new musical culture.

“The period around the film and going back to Jamaica when I had several big hits was great, but over the years perhaps the strong impact I have had in Africa is the most rewarding thing.”

With “The Harder They Come” the sequel ready to begin filming later this year, he hopes that it will have the same “grittiness” of the original and will have a similar impact on his own musical activities. It would be another remarkable twist in a pioneering life.

Here’s a feature on Billy Bragg that appeared in The Herald (though not on their website)

Although six years have passed since Billy Bragg’s last album, ‘England, Half English’  and twenty-five since he launched his solo career, his presence has never been greater, nor more necessary, than in the the current decade.

Bragg has matured as both a writer and musician from the man for all causes of the eighties, where along with the likes of The Style Council and the Redskins he formed part of the rock vanguard against Thatcherism and its many bi-products.  These days he makes for a fascinating, occasionally contradictory, mix of activist and musician.

The latter has returned to the fore with the recent release of his eleventh album, ‘Mr.Love and Justice,’ but Bragg has not been taking a sabbatical in his Dorset home in the intervening years.  Besides the continuing interest in his back catalogue, he has rarely been out of the media, developing his ideas on Englishness, publishing his book ‘The Progressive Patriot’ two years ago and appearing regularly as a commentator on issues of race and nationality.

He has also worked tirelessly for his Jail Guitar Doors project, set up to help prisoners use music as a means of getting their lives back on track and become a regular fixture, in elder statesman mode, at music award ceremonies, most recently singing with Kate Nash at the NME Awards.

For all his non-musical activity, one senses that Bragg is happy to be back on the musical campaign trail, and pleased to shift the emphasis from global issues to personal ones. Although the songs have been accumulated over a number of years, ‘Mr. Love & Justice’ and its accompanying live shows are evidence that, against the odds, Bragg remains musically relevant.

“Some of the songs, like ‘I Keep Faith’ have been around for a while,” he explains. “I was certainly singing it during the 2005 election campaign, though a fair number of them were written when we were in the studio last year.”

“Most of them tend to lean towards songs of the heart than songs of the barricades,” he adds of their gestation. “I’d spent a lot of time on researching, writing and then traveling around talking about ‘The Progressive Patriot’ and the issues that I began exploring with ‘England, Half English’ so it seemed right to take a step back from politics to the personal.”

Another aspect of the album which appears to be a nod towards a more intimate past is the packaging of the CD with a bonus disc of solo versions of the songs. While Bragg’s band, The Blokes, are often criticised for their stodginess and conventionality, he claims that there is nothing to read into the move, other than it was a diversion to assist with the marketing of the record.

“Record labels are always looking for something extra to help them sell it,” he laughs.  “Originally, the idea was to film me recording the songs, and the solo recordings kind of grew out of that. I’d always envisaged, and wanted it to be a band album, but some people prefer one, some the other - it’s a fierce topic of debate as to which is the better disc on my website forum at the moment.”

With tours of both the USA and Australia already under his belt in 2008 and a lengthy British haul underway, Bragg’s career has co-incided with the overhaul of the live music industry into a multinational concern of sponsored festivals and branded venues, something that he appears resigned, rather than opposed to:
“Live music has certainly changed, but I don’t think it is all bad,” he says. “The spit and sawdust type places are gradually disappearing - the Barrowland is one of the few really old style venues left that feels like it hasn’t changed since the fifties - but there is still a huge enthusiasm for live music and great bands . I played at the Big Day Out festival in Australia in January and Rage Against the Machine were top of the bill, and it was amazing to watch.”

Bragg seems happier to talk about the present than the past, and cautions against being caught in the belief that things in his chosen profession were better ‘back then.’

“I think that while it is good to look back fondly,” he says, “It is always dangerous to fall into the trap of thinking that things aren’t as good as they used to be. It’s not like it was in 1968, or 1977 or whenever. I worry that I bore the tits off young people by going on about The Clash, but I think their music is as vital now as it was at the time, and if it still inspires people then great.”

While still respectful his own heroes and contemporaries (Bragg first made music in the punk band, Riff Raff in 1977), he now finds himself in the slightly strange situation of being  a role model for a new generation of artists.

“I’ve been releasing records for 25 years and there are still a lot of new people getting into my music,” he claims.  “When I played at the NME Awards earlier this year there were bands coming up to me, shaking my hand and saying that saying that their Dads had turned them on to my music. That’s great.”

“I’ve also been lucky enough to have people like Jamie T cover my songs, and do 5 shows with Hard Fi who invited me to support them. And then I have done duets this year with Kate Nash, so it is good to be playing to younger audiences and reach new people, not just preaching to the converted.”

If not musically, then politically, it could be argue that Bragg has spent much of the last few years doing exactly that, though, again, he is keen to put some distance between himself and the more traditional elements of the left with which he may have been mistakenly aligned in the past.

“The book started as an investigation into my past,” he says. “When it came out,I was still criticised by people who said I shouldn’t talk about these issues of race and nationality, even though they knew that I was no racist. There are still those on the left who  still want to talk about class, but that doesn’t resonate any more. We’ve got to get on with some sort of inclusive and progressive idea of what it is to be English.”

“I always said with the book that Englishness should be about place rather than race, and about where you are at rather than where you are from. I wanted to examine where I was from and my own background. I was born in Barking and, like a lot of people, my family ended up there through a mixture of migration and economic necessity. One of my great grandfathers was from Italy, the other from Essex. The other factor in wanting to do it was because of the success of the BNP in and around Barking - I wanted to know why that had happened, to provide a platform to talk about them and start a debate on the issues.”

With both his music and writing, Bragg has managed to position himself at the centre of the debate - looking backwards to drive himself forwards, doing so with a commitment and dignity befitting a man who has recently entered his sixth decade.

Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow

There is much to admire about a band as unlikely as Foals, and their elevation to ‘next big thing’ status remains, simultaneously, a delight and a head scratcher.

While others may trawl similar musical territory for inspiration, none of them manage to turn raw materials that extend from Krautrock to post-punk via. hardcore, into something both memorable and adored by 16 year olds. The relative youth of band and audience can obscure a complexity and intelligence in the music, which sounds like Big Flame as produced by Xenomania.

This jerky, rhythmic and intense recipe could produce cold and unappealing results, but it does not account for their ability to come up with memorable lines - both musically and lyrically - that make so many of the songs on their debut album, Antidotes, a triumph. ‘The French Open’ and current single, ‘Cassius,’ are cases in point: accessible enough to just about appease Bloc Party or even Placebo fans, while still satisfying those who crave something more artful. The sheer energy of the relatively brief performance is equally endearing, and there is none of the stand-off cool that frequently translates as tedium.

Nevertheless, Foals’ ascent may be down to their conformity with other aspects of the currently depressingly homogeneous British “indie” scene: they are, after all, blokes with guitars and good haircuts, and their music, seems almost entirely bereft of any non-Caucasian influences.

Though they have hit on a relatively unique sound and made a vibrant, refreshing album it is proper to question how much further it can be stretched given its limited sources.

While well ahead of their contemporaries at this stage, the real challenge might be keeping up with themselves and fending off the challenges to their creativity in the wake of inevitable commercial success.

“It’s weird doing interviews again,” laughs Aidan Moffat. “I kind of swore when Arab Strap split up that I was never doing it again, but it’s alright – it’s actually easier to do without Malcolm! There’s no arguing, but it’s odd having to just talk about myself.”

Moffat is back – both from a brief sojourn in West Kilbride (where he bought a house, but returned to Glasgow within weeks) and from a period of relative invisibility – and talking about himself and his new record, ‘I Can Hear Your Heart.’

It is a collection of spoken word snippets, poems, songs and short stories juxtaposed with samples of threatening sounding lounge music that somehow makes for a coherent, engaging and funny whole. Despite the context, it is not easy listening, but seems to complete a circle that goes back to the earliest Arab Strap releases.

It was December 2006 when Arab Strap called it a day when a batch of touring concluded with a celebratory show at the ABC in Glasgow and a few Japanese shows. The compilation, ‘Ten Years of Tears’ made for a fitting bookend and the Glasgow finale seemed like a band achieving that rare level of self-awareness in knowing when and where to stop.

“The thing about that gig,” he explains, “I discovered afterwards, was that a lot of people travelled to it. There were people from Japan, even someone from Australia, and also from around the U.K., people knew it was Glasgow, the last show in Britain and it was going to be the best one.”

“It did occur to us in the dressing room ‘where were these people six months ago?’ But it was a great gig, it just seems that you earn your respect when you split up. I think with the next band, I’ll just make one record and then split up!”

Though his former Arab Strap partner, Malcolm Middleton, enjoyed prominence and acclaim shortly thereafter with his third solo album, ‘A Brighter Beat,’ Moffat seemed to be lying low, with only occasional sightings.

Even so, his last year has been more low profile than inactive. January saw the release of his third instrumental album as L.Pierre and his new band, Aidan Moffat and the Best Ofs, performed live for the first time. He also appeared with Ian Rankin on the ‘Ballad of the Books’ album, but, in the immediate aftermath of the band’s split, he admits to doubts about his future direction.

“I’d saved money for that purpose - so that I could take some time off and see what I was going to do. I got a wee bit of money from signing a publishing deal with Domino, but career-wise, I did go through a period when I was quite confused. I’m glad I waited – I think if I had done this album two months after Arab Strap split up, I don’t think people would have cared, but there was a point last year, when everyone I knew in a band was doing really well and I was sitting on my arse. It was my own decision, but you start to get really bored.”

Indeed, boredom appears to have been something of creative spur, at least during the period in his early and mid twenties when the majority of the tales recounted on the album took place.

“Really, it was less to do with age and more to do with being in a band. For much of the time, you have nothing to do. For the first few years of Arab Strap we were broke, but once you have a bit of money, like we did after we signed to a major, you start to make it more seriously.”

“Even then, there are periods when you are at a loose end. So you go to the pub. The weekends don’t exist when you are in a band, you can do what you like.”

If the narratives that make up ‘I Can Hear Your Heart” originated in this period, it is one that Moffat will simultaneously claim that he has grown out of, though he can still connect with and laugh at his (sometimes thinly disguised) former self.

“I suppose, in a way, the album has taken years,” he says. “There were things that I had written specifically that weren’t supposed to be songs and I wasn’t ever quite sure what to do with them. When I went back to read them, it was like going back to reading an old diary. Basically, it was me being a bit of a prick when I was young.”

“I thought it would be good to write from the point of a young man who thinks he is smart, the cock o’ the north. Obviously, the guy in the story is me, and by the end of it, I haven’t learned anything! I’d like to think I am different now, of course, but it is only with retrospect that you can joke about yourself. Everyone goes through that phase, and it is a great phase to go through – you can tell I had a great time.”

Though he talks of this part of his life ending in the period when he met his girlfriend, turned thirty and the band split, the most interesting aspects of the record are the way in which, lyrically and in terms of production, it harks back to the earliest Arab Strap records. This was something that concerned Moffat as it came together:

“What worried me the most was that in some ways it is a step back,” he says, “and I thought that people would think it was just an album of moaning from that whinging old beardy guy from Glasgow who is obsessed by sex.”

“Exactly the opposite seems to have happened, people seem to say that it is what I do best. Which is odd as well, because nobody was interested in Arab Strap! Suddenly we’re quite revered in all these posh papers, but if all these people had bothered to buy the records or go to the gigs at the time. . .”

The sound of ‘I Can Hear Your Heart’ also reflects a change in the process of Moffat’s record making – the outcome being a record that sounds like it could either have taken years to make, or been recorded in one drunken late night session. The truth is somewhat more prosaic.

“It was a mixture of both techniques,” he claims. “ I had always wanted it to have a lot of cheesy sounding, lounge samples, and I did collect them and plan it over a long period. On the other hand, a lot of the vocals were done in one or two days, and I think that’s what gives it the coherence.”

“Normally, I wouldn’t even dream of drinking in the studio, but this time we would go to the pub and decide that maybe it was for the best, as I needed to relax – I was reading them too quickly. A few of them were recorded under the influence, but the last track, ‘Hilary and Back’ – I had to be very sober for that one!  It does have that sort of rambling effect – but it has been planned over a long period and I’ve been chipping away it for years.”

The nature of the record has also presented Moffat with a problem in an age of digital downloads – paying 79p for one minute poem hardly sits comfortably with the current record industry model for delivering music. It is something Moffat and his label, Chemikal Underground have worked hard to circumnavigate:

“I know – it doesn’t really work,” he laughs. “but we had always wanted to do something special with the packaging of this record, but not purely to sell it. It is going to come in one of these book style packages and there’s a five-track bonus CD, a bonus short story and a glossary of Scots’ words. It’s a brilliant package and I hope it is the sort of thing that will be desirable to people who want the album. You have to do that these days – a standard ten track CD in a jewel case isn’t enough anymore.”

Indeed – beyond the album release, Moffat intends to play a small number of live shows and finish work on the first Aidan Moffat and The Best Of’s album. He won’t be invisible in 2008.

I Can Hear Your Heart is released on Chemikal Underground on 11th February

Oran Mor, Glasgow
For such an assured songwriter, this show marks a very tentative step on the road to an almost assured stardom.

At eighteen and with considerable financial backing behind her talents, it would surely be possible to present the show in a less controlled environment. Here, the tickets have been distributed to fans only online, resulting in an adulatory, if undersold venue. By the end of the ten songs, Marling admits that “you made it too easy for us.”

Nevertheless, there is much to admire in the way she handles the circumstances. The mood is homely and understated, the band’s admirable restraint belying the fact they have only recently been aquainted with the songs. Marling projects an air of confidenced, without ever being complacent or arrogant.

The use of fiddle and harmonium to augment her acoustic guitar produces a warmth in songs that are often bleak, frequently portraying messed up male characters in a manner that suggests experience beyond her years. Indeed, the songs frequently start with only Marling’s voice and guitar, building into a fuller sound. Though there is little in the way of killer hooks, the melodies of the best songs - ‘Night Terror’ and ‘My Manic and I’ are nevertheless insidious.

Skipping the soul pastiches of Duffy and Adele and opting for a more subtle approach than K.T. Tunstall and her many less convincing clones, Marling seems musically more in synch with American songwriters despite the English references in her lyrics. The early, folkier work of Shawn Colvin and Natalie Merchant springs to mind, and while this is not necessarily a blueprint for instant commercial return, it does hint at a durability and longevity. In time, she will hopefully become less cautious with her live presentation.

Edited version appeared in The Herald

for 2007 - observe distinct Scottish bias. . .

1 The Royal We - The Royal We (Geographic)
2 Alasdair Roberts - The Amber Gatherers (Drag City)
3 Panda Bear - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
4 Malcolm Middleton - A Brighter Beat (Full Time Hobby)
5 Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity (ATP)
6 Tenniscoats - Tan Tan Therapy (Hapna)
7 Thurston Moore - Trees Outside The Academy (Ecstatic Peace)
8 1990s - Cookies (Rough Trade)
9 LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver (DFA)
10 Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go (Domino)
11 Magik Markers - Boss (Ecstatic Peace)
12 Bill Callahan - Woke On a Whaleheart (Drag City)
13 Battles - Mirrored (Warp)
14 Grinderman - Grinderman (Mute)
15 Various Artists - Ballads of the Book (Chemikal Underground)
16 Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound (Touch & Go)
17 Robert Wyatt - Comicopera (Domino)
18 Dinosaur Jr - Beyond (Pias)
19 PJ Harvey - White Chalk (Island)
20 Burial - Untrue (Hyperdub)
21 Various Artists - Trunk, Now We Are Ten (Trunk)
22 Emma Pollock - Watch The Fireworks (4AD)
23 Taken By Trees - Open Field (Rough Trade)
24 Tarwater - Spider Smile (Morr Music)
25 Various Artists - Don’t Fudge With The Fence Made (Fence)
26 King Creosote - Bombshell (679)
27 Von Sudenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions (Domino)
28 Terry Riley - Les Yeux Fermes / Lifespan ( Elision Fields)
29 Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth (Domino)
30 White Stripes - Icky Thump (XL Recordings)
31 Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns And Fifteen Winters (Fat Cat)
32 Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls (Too Pure)
33 Edwyn Collins - Home Again (Heavenly)
34 Beirut - The Flying Club Cup (4AD)
35 Wolves In The Throne Room -Two Hunters (Southern Lord)
36 Maher Shalal Hash Baz - L’Autre Cap (K)
37 Tape & Minamo - Birds Of A Feather (Headz)
38 The Parsonage - The Parsonage (OSCarr)
39 Vashti Bunyan - Somethings Just Stick in Your Mind (4AD)
40 Angels Of Light - We Are Him (Young God)
41 Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala (Secretly Canadian)
42 Scout Nibblett – This Fool Can Die Now (Too Pure)
43 David Shrigley - Worried Noodles (Tomlab)
44 Life Without Buildings - Live At The Annandale Hotel (Garageblast)
45 Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow (Pedal)
46 Directorsound - Leaving The Moors (Rusted Rail)
47 Foxface - This Is What Makes Us (Garageblast)
48 BMX Bandits - Bee Stings (Poppydisc)
49 Amiina - Kurr (Ever)
50 Richard Youngs - Autumn Response (Secretly Canadian) 

Classic Grand, Glasgow

It is easy to pour suspicion on Rilo Kiley’s near perfect layers of adult pop music.

Consider the case for the prosecution: the nouveau hippy LA-isms that permeate, the much documented child star past of Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett, the film star friends and the all-round shininess of the package.

However, their great strength is that, regardless of its background, the music exudes a warmth and radiance where many of their soft rock contemporaries come across as cold and calculating.

This is achieved by songs that are consistently musically multi-faceted and lyrically deep. Sennett’s guitar playing is the bedrock of the sound, but Lewis’s voice augmented by Orenda Fink and Kristin Gundred’s harmonies, is soothing in a Karen Carpenter way, yet adds soaring dynamics to even the less remarkable songs.

Not that there are many which fall into that category. At their most flippant (’Smoke Detector’) the catchiness verges on irritating, but the opening coupling of ‘Close Call’ and ‘It’s A Hit’ represents the best of their two most recent albums.

The former is typical of the seedy lyrical themes and seventies’ sound of ‘Under The Blacklight,’ the latter closest they come to the type of song that will break them into the mainstream, where their melodies and effortless songwriting craft ought to reside.

Even the few songs from their earliest days that survive - ‘With Arms Outstretched,”Execution of All Things’ and ‘Pictures of Success’ - are peerless pieces of jangly, guitar pop, although the grinding funk that underpins ‘Moneymaker’ and the stripped back version of ‘Under the Blacklight’ show how much they added to their musical palette.

Though this tour appears to have been undersold, Rilo Kiley remain an obviously great band, currently at the peak of their capabilities.

SECC, Glasgow
Thirty years on it has come to this: sharing a venue with a Disney on Ice production, and with the tour co-promoted by a video game (’Guitar Hero III: The Legends of Rock’) Sex Pistols come on stage to the strains of ‘I Belong to Glasgow,’ with John Lydon’s declaration that ‘you were robbed.’

Until this is expanded with a derogatory line about Italians, it could have been an updating of his famous ‘ever get the feeling, you’ve been cheated?’ outburst of the seventies.

It, nevertheless, encapsulates the comedic, crowd-pleasing aspect of this latest reunion, but rarely, even at £35 per ticket, can there be too many grumbles. All of ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ gets an airing (though not in sequence), augmented by some cover versions, b-sides and singles to make up an hour and ten minutes worth of material.

For a band who only released one album, it is testimony to their significance that anyone still cares and, more remarkably, that it still works.

Cook, Matlock and Jones provide the solid hard rock backing with a degree of proficiency no-one would have imagined in 1977, and Lydon is on great form too: arrogant and self-effacing, the most contrary frontman in rock history has razor sharp put-downs for the spitters and beer-chuckers in the front rows.

In addition, his targets (the monarchy, politicians, record companies and Malcolm McLaren) retain their fascination and the bile with which ‘God Save The Queen,’ ‘E.M.I.’ and ‘Liar’ are delivered make them the highlights of the show.

As reformations go, this sits well between this decade’s versions of Roxy Music and the New York Dolls: a reminder of past greatness performed with zest and guile, coated in, but relatively unencumbered by its audacious cynicism. Absurdly good.