Just recovering from last night's SLF gig up in Aberdeen. It was a good show by Jake and the lads which was, it would be fair to say, a gig of "two halves". As it was their 30th anniversary tour, the band have decided to play their first album "inflammable material" and, personally for me, the rendition of this was what made the gig.
So, after the long drive northwards from Edinburgh, at 10.30pm to the familiar intro music of "go for it", SLF arrived on stage at the busy Lemon Tree venue, which is quite compact and with it's low ceiling it also gets rather hot, etc...you could probably fit it into Glasgow Barrowlands 3-4 times over!
The setlist ran something like this:
Roots, Radics, Rockers, Reggae / Nobody's Hero / At The Edge / Strummerville / Silver Lining / Liar's Club / Fly The Flag / Guitar and Drum / Suspect Device / State of Emergency / Here We are Nowhere / Wasted Life / No More of That / Barbed Wire Love / White Noise / Breakout / Law and Order / Rough Trade / Johnny Was / Alternative Ulster.
Encores: The Boys are Back in Town (Thin Lizzy cover)/ Just Fade Away / Tin Soldiers.
As I mentioned, after the initial seven or eight numbers , which (apart from the new song) seem to be played all the time, things really picked up from 'suspect device' onwards. The rendition of the first album (in order) was great and worked really well in a live context. Moreover, as Jake now has a better voice from the time of the original album recordings, songs like "state of emergency", "breakout" and "rough trade" sounded much more emotive and generally better all-round.
Some words of wisdom from Jake Burns last night:
(after 'here we are nowhere'):
"2 verses, 2 choruses, a guitar solo and a middle eight all into 57 seconds, let's see the Ramones beat that!"
(to which some dude in the crowd retorted "aww, but they cannae now like!"
)
(before 'Guitar and Drum'):
" this is a song for Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and poor wee Louis (Walsh) who's now down the job centre......and not a minute too soon!"
As inflammable material was being played, a few songs which I've never seen SLF played were dusted down for the occassion: "no more than that" was excellent although I'm not too sure about "white noise", even though Jake explained it's anti-racism message beforehand and acknowledged that the lyrics of the song are rather ugly... but it's kinda difficult to appreciate a song when 2 guys in the crowd started a fight and were knocking/punching seven bells of cr*p outta each other! Believe it or not, after they got pulled apart, it looked like they had both made up with each other before the end of the show! It should be mentioned that the vibe of the audience was (that example excepted) generally one of good spirits although nowhere near as wild as Glasgow, but friendly nonetheless...it's also amazing how many different SLF t-shirts you can spot at one of their shows (although just to be different I was wearing my Alarm 'under attack' one), oh, the merchandise stall had some new and nice designs at 15 quid a pop.
Anyhoo, for the encore a (by this stage of the proceedings) rather sweaty SLF played a Thin Lizzy song: "the boys are back in town" whereby Jake and Ian could do their twin guitar harmony attack...way to go! oh, and a shout also goes out to Ali on bass and that excellent drummer, whose name I can't recall... he does look kinda familiar though....
So at around midnight it was all over for another gig and all that was left was the long haul south back home (it was a bit daunting thinking of a 120 mile drive at that time of night, at least the road wasn't that busy) and farewell to the granite city.....although not before catching sight of yet 2 other geezers boxing (with what looked to be following victorian-era type rules!) by the banks of the river Dee! This was while following the main road south out of Aberdeen....on reflection I'm starting to wonder whether this is a local custom for a friday night in Aberdeen!
'this is the sound of....the sound of THE ALARM CALLING'
