G Live – James Chapple

The Stranglers, G Live (again)

Ahhh, The Stranglers – Guildford’s very own men in black are back for another trip down memory lane at G Live.

In fact, it’s their fifth March gig in five years at G Live – and it kind of shows, just a little.

Tonight, after a turn by tour mates The Alarm, we’re treated to the band’s 1978 album Black and White in its entirety.

Never ones for airs and graces, it’s 45 minutes until Stranglers frontman Baz Warne so much as goes near the mic between numbers.

“If you were a bit confused by that, you didn’t buy the f*****g album in 1978, did you?” he sneers in a broad, Mackem yammer.

Turning to JJ Burnel, bassist and RGS old boy, Warne adds: “He [Burnel] says you’re a bit less constipated tonight.”

It’s the closest thing this crowd are going to get to a compliment tonight.

The music’s as good as ever though. Raw, raucous and simmering with the same righteous anger that so defined the band during the late-70s.

Tank’s driving chords, manic keys and yelps of “I can drive [drive!] my very own tank!” segue effortlessly into the brilliantly grotty Nice N’ Sleazy, propelled by one of Burnel’s signature bass riffs.

It’s undoubtedly a treat for devotees, but it comes at a price. The first half of the show, illuminated only in monochrome, just feels a little flat.

The bonkers Norfolk Coast and gnarly Lose Control get things back on track, followed up by a boisterous rendition of Always The Sun, heralding the first singalong of note of the evening.

And it’s to the band’s credit the momentum only builds further, closing out the main set with I Feel Like A Wog and the anthemic Something Better Change, which feels as relevant now as it did in 1977.

There’s no Jet Black tonight, the band’s septuagenarian drummer and founder member above whose offie in Guildford the band formed in the 70s – and whom they welcomed back for a few numbers during last year’s show at G Live.

Equally conspicuous by their absence are a handful of the band’s best known songs, namely Duchess, Hanging Around and Golden Brown.

The biggest cheer of the night though is reserved for encore opener Peaches. It’s a filthy tune, underpinned by another one of Burnel’s masterful squally basslines and Warne’s sleazy snarls.

There’s just time for No More Heroes and that’s it. It’s another typically brash, brusque and belligerent Stranglers performance.

But it’s hard not to feel this annual pilgrimage may just have lost its way a little – and that the band’s hometown faithful deserved a little bit more than they got.

James Chapple

Originally published on Get Surrey, 15/03/16

Bowling For Soup, G Live

Good old Bowling For Soup, the Texan pop-punkers who just wouldn’t let 2002 go – and are still steadfastly refusing to do so if their latest How About Another Round? tour is anything to go by.

“I read an article recently that said pop-punk was DEAD,” muses frontman Jaret Reddick during the band’s typically playful show at Guildford’s G Live on Wednesday night (February 10).

He’s barely changed a jot since the band got together in the mid-90s, save for the paunch – that’s new: “I have to share the fat guy jokes with Chris [Burney, guitarist] now,” he jokes.

“Well we’re here to show pop-punk is NOT dead – it’s just on viagra,” roars Reddick mid-set, launching into a medley of classics from Blink 182, Green Day, New Found Glory and Jimmy Eat World, not to mention a full rendition of Fountains of Wayne mega-hit Stacy’s Mom.

The band’s high-octane show is, however, tempered throughout by their impeccable stage patter – and the fact they have a fully functioning bar up on stage with them.

Indeed, the whole show is set in their very own Ye Olde Soup Inn, complete with darts board and beer kegs that shoot flames 20ft into the air. Cerebral it is not, fun it most definitely is.

While it would be easy to dismiss the band’s puerile musings (expect knob jokes and fart gags) and childish antics (Reddick announces himself by belching into his microphone) as crass, it’s impossible to fault the band’s infectious enthusiasm and lust for performance.

The show has more than a whiff of cabaret about it, which is all-pervasive from opening act Lacey through compere MC Lars, who does his best to get the crowd onboard by rapping Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (“who’s that rapping, who’s that rapping, who’s that rapping at my chamber door?” – you get the joke) and finally main support The Dollyrots.

The trio bound onstage with all the gusto you would expect of a band who have long been touring partners with the Bowling For Soup guys.

Almost completely hidden behind her faintly ridiculous over-sized bass guitar, diminutive singer Kelly Ogden yelps and wails like a banshee through the band’s short and sweet set alongside partner and guitarist Luis Cabezas.

Introducing a punked-up cover of Melanie’s Brand New Key, Odgen jokes: “In our country, this song is about sex – not farmyard machinery,” referring to The Wurzels’ classic “Combine Harvester” cover. It’s a remarkably acute reference, particularly for an American act.

They make a decent racket though, and even bring their young son River on for a quick word with the Guildford faithful. It’s that kind of show, although River is far more interested in licking the microphone than chatting with the audience.

After another slightly laboured stint by MC Lars, Bowling For Soup – Reddick, Burney, bassist Erik Chandler and drummer Gary Wiseman – take to the stage and tear into The Bitch Song, followed up by Emily – two of the bands biggest hits.

“I know we’re just two songs in, but would you agree Bowling For Soup are already the greatest band you have ever seen?” asks Reddick. G Live largely agrees.

Fan favourite Punk Rock 101 soon follows, sped up what feels like ten times, as does the band’s cover of SR-71’s 1985 and the aforementioned pop-punk medley.

They’re joined by The Dollyrots on Love Ya, Love Ya, Love Ya before closing out their main set with High School Never Ends, culminating in a slightly demented singalong as the crowd bellow the main riff back at them.

Rather than disappear back stage for a breather ahead of the customary encore, the band instead simply sidle over to their stage bar for a beer and a few shots.

“We’ve solved the encore,” claims Reddick, and he’s right, to an extent, as any Bowling For Soup fan worth their salt could tell you what was coming – a twin sucker-punch of Shut-Up And Smile followed by Girl All The Bad Guys Want, without a shadow of a doubt the band’s finest hour.

It would be churlish to call it an anticlimax in much the same way it would if you didn’t expect Wheatus, for instance, to close out their shows with Teenage Dirtbag.

The first note of Girl… alone sends everyone bananas. Writhing mosh pits seethe with sweaty, smiling Guildfordians while the pyrotechnics lick at the rafters.

It may well have been the finale everyone was expecting, but it’s nonetheless absolutely the right one.

Not much has changed about Bowling For Soup since they rode the wave that was pop-punk the best part of 15 years ago.

They’re fiercely proud of their Texan roots and it’s heartwarming to see the band met with such affection, albeit despite not quite managing to sell-out G Live tonight.

Bowling For Soup certainly achieve what they set out to show. Pop-punk is most definitely not dead; in fact, it doesn’t even need viagra yet.

James Chapple

Pictures by Sophie Garrett.

Originally published on Get Surrey, 11/02/16

The Stranglers, G Live

The Stranglers made an uproarious return to Guildford on Thursday (March 5) with a triumphant, hit-laden homecoming at G Live.

Some 40 years after founder members, Guilfordian drummer Jet Black and and singer Hugh Cornwell, met in the mid-70s, the band led hundreds of devotees on a career-spanning trip down memory lane at the venue in London Road.

Pounding renditions of the ubiquitous Golden Brown, with its skittish harpsichord swells, and sleazy stomper Peaches are obvious highlights, although No More Heroes was conspicuous by its absence.

It was back in 1974 that Black, real name John Duffy, and Cornwell formed The Guildford Stranglers, who were initially based out of The Jackpot, the off-licence run by the enterprising young Black.

The duo soon recruited bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel, a former Royal Grammar School pupil, who was joined by guitarist Hans Wärmling and keyboardist Dave Greenfield.

But after penning some of the band’s most immediately recognisable numbers, Cornwell later bowed out in 1990 and was replaced by Paul Roberts before Mackem Baz Warne took centre stage in 2006.

“Last time we were here, youse all said you couldn’t understand me, man!” drawls Warne in his thick Wearside drawl.

“Am I too northern for you?” he jests, shortly after the band walk on Waltzinblack, the opening track from The Stranglers’ 1981 album, The Gospel According to the Meninblack – best remembered as the theme music from eccentric TV chef Keith Floyd’s madcap cooking shows.

It’s almost exactly a year since the band last played G Live, but there are no signs of the band not being welcome back.

Every song is met with rapturous applause, every lyric belted out by a rag, tag and bobtail bunch of fans, many of whom have been with the band right from the very start.

After a high octane set by fellow 70s new wave punks The Rezillos, Warne and co rip into The Raven with its swirling synths, pulsing bassline and staccato guitar riff and also I’ve Been Wild, which despite being one of the band’s (relatively) newer numbers has a big, brash chorus befitting any Stranglers classic.

Deputising on drums, Jim MacAulay stands aside midway through the band’s set to allow sticksman Black to take the limelight, cue pandemonium as Black counts in Baroque Bordello, which sounds like some kind of demented fairground ride led by Greenfield’s synths.

Immediately, the lights go up around G Live, bathing the venue in a warm golden glow – everyone knows what’s coming, but the iconic harpsichord intro of Golden Brown is enough to make even the most hardened Stranglers fan’s hairs stand on end.

The song leaps and jolts between time signatures from phrase to phrase, an ode both to the tangled mind of a desperate heroin addiction and Cornwell’s fascination with a mysterious temptress. It’s long been heralded their greatest accomplishment, and with good reason.

Black remains on the drums for an equally well-received airing of Always The Sun, sparking another deafening sing-along to its soaring chorus, and also Genetix.

The run-in sees the band drop a squelching, grimy version of Peaches, propelled by Burnel’s burbling bass and Warne’s scabrous sneers, before the set is rounded out with Duchess, Lost Control, Curfew and finally Down in the Sewer.

With time in hand, there’s just room for an encore featuring Hanging Around – but there is no place in the set, oddly, for the anthemic No More Heroes, which elucidates a few murmurs of discontent from the masses.

It’s the only blot on an otherwise exultant homecoming for The Stranglers.

James Chapple

Originally published on Get Surrey, 06/03/15