Stiff Little Fingers at Bristol

The best old school punk band still touring (Photo : Kevin Ruscoe)
I've been seeing Stiff Little Fingers at least once every year over  the last ten years and my mate Gary has now seen them over 30 times. For me they are the best punk band to see at the moment and their songs are just as relevant as they ever were.

In a way that's quite sad. The world has not improved much in the last 30 years. Tin Soldier and Wasted Life mean as much now as they ever did, even taking into account the success of the peace process in Northern Ireland.

But really these are anthems about the human condition. Alternative Ulster could apply to any city, any community.

Originally, the support was to have been Spear of Destiny but Kirk Brandon was ill. So a local band by the name of Los Conios stepped in. They were not received as well they deserved, despite being a local band. I liked their recent single, Split, which I've downloaded from Amazon, but felt their tempo changes were sometimes a little abrupt and may be a bar to future success.I'm a simple chap with simple tastes

SLF did not disappoint. They played Listen, to my considerable delight. They hadn't played it for ages.

They also tantalised us new songs from a forthcoming album. It's been coming forth for years but is coming forth even more now!

And as an encore they gave us I fought the law.

Jake said "Everybody else has murdered it so we might just as well have a go."

It was an inspired choice and done just as well as the highly appreciative audience liked.

Jake said during the set that Stiff Little Fingers always feel the Bristol crowd made them feel very welcome and that's the way it felt to me. When Jake did his windmill arm thing (on any else his age this could look very silly) the crowd in front of me looked at his/her neighbour in amazement - it looked that good.

A great performance from a great band in a great venue. The crowd were great, too!

I moshed. In the circumstances it was impossible not to.

Comments

Reader's favourites