“I agree. Over-rated band, Stewart can’t sing, and they look like New Romantics. On the plus side, they only made two albums. On the negative side, they’re back”
That quote from the never knowingly undersold comments section of YouTube gets included for two reasons: principally because its funny – and now factually incorrect since the release this year of rousing return Citizen Zombie, but also because it’s more or less the diametric opposite of what’s dished up tonight.
Though they may not be in the first flush of antagonistic youth, The Pop Group fling out a performance of such vim, vigour and redoubtable excellence it belies their combined ages just surpassing Methuselah – and he was a spritely 969 when he packed it in.
There really can be no overestimating the creativity and singularity of Mark Stewart et al – so lustily on display here.
It was they who identified the essential conservativeness at the heart of punk – indeed a criticism that can be laid at the door of almost all soi-disant alternative music movements through the ages.
It was they who first introduced elements of dub; not PiL or any of the alternatives on offer.
It was they who went further and pulled in funk, beats, bits of jazz and, hell yes, some seriously danceable grooves, like the ones drifting in an out of the frothing miasma of sound here; all the while the the essential core of tense, agit-prop punk wrestles things together… just freed up from any dreary manifesto and misinformed notions that that movement constrained itself with so very very quickly.
Don’t be mistaken in thinking tonight is a nostalgia fest: the new album is as excellent as anything they’ve ever done and, as has been noted by better writers than me – I know, right – live they are better at conveying their mighty roar than they ever were before.
Despite the longest sound check in western musical history – necessary perhaps because the mixing desk (in the style of some time Stewart collaborator Adrian Sherwood) is as much an instrument as the stuff being attacked in front of us – when eventually things kick off, from start to finish, there’s a profound sense of originality; always sounding ahead of the curve; and, dammit, a frothing and wriggling good time amongst the banging, clattering, hollering shoutiness.
It’s barely controlled aggression, but with unashamed pop hooks thrown in left and right: this is why they are so influential; this is why they matter; this is why so many bands cite them as an influence.
It’s political and powerful to the max, from recent songs like ‘Citizen Zombie’ to older efforts like ‘Where There’s A Will…’, but if you’re going to soundtrack alienation and the crappier elements of modern civilisation, you may as well waggle your arse to ridiculously good musicianship at the same time; let’s face Doomsday and dance.
We are hectored and shouted at: ears fair assaulted by whistles and walls of noise, but the crowd lap it up; it’s worthy but it sure ain’t precious.
The one qualifier for these shenanigans is that one longs for a different venue; somewhere dark and sweaty for the bewildering array of sounds coming at us from onstage to bounce off the walls and ceiling around us.
It’s an artful venue with an artful crowd: creatives to a man and featuring the requisite collection of on point spectacles; apart from that… stunning effort.
Thankfully events are so compelling that I do not recreate a previous visit to these environs and get stranded in the (ladies) loos for nigh on 30-minutes: for that we – mainly the female contingent – should be profoundly grateful.
Can’t say fairer than that: bravo, (not so) young men, bravo.
Words: Andrew Morrison
