Music > Live Reviews
Stiff Little Fingers
The Adrian Flux Waterfront
27/03/17
It’s March, so it must be time for Stiff Little Fingers to visit Norwich. You can set your watch by them, a watch that has months not minutes on it, admittedly, but you get my point. For the fourth consecutive year the band are back to floor us with their high energy pop-punk nuggets, this time celebrating their 40th anniversary.
Tour support this time round is Theatre Of Hate, the legendary post-punk band fronted by Kirk Brandon. I’m not going to pretend that I’m a lifelong fan of the band, other than a couple of tracks I’m not really familiar with them at all, but I do know there were people who went along just to see them. After watching their 45 minute set it’s easy to see why, as they were superb. The sound took a while to settle down, but by second song Original Sin the mix had improved, with an impressively massive bottom end courtesy of ace bassist Stan Stammers. Brandon’s voice has been described as an acquired taste, but I don’t see it, on stage his voice was powerful and the sax playing of John ‘Boy’ Lennard took things to a whole other level, on the one hand invoking the 80's era the band formed in, but also underpinning every song rather in the way of Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man. Only a few brief moments dropped the intensity and by the time they ended with their signature tune Do You Believe in the Westworld the applause was raucous. Whether in Theatre Of Hate, Spear Of Destiny or solo, the next time Mr. Brandon visits Norwich I hope I can be there.
It’s got to the point where I almost take Stiff Little Fingers for granted. I expect their annual visit, I am 100% confident that they will be brilliant live, I know they will never disappoint. Really though, I need to remind myself to cherish them, to realise how lucky we are to still have them after 40 years. They also inspire total devotion from their fans; the Waterfront was rammed, fuller than I can remember it being for years, and for the duration of the set the whole area in front of the stage was filled with smiling, dancing, sweating fans having the absolute best time. Playing a slightly longer set than usual, the tracks spanned the entirety of their career, including songs off some of their lesser known albums from the 90s. Songs that aren’t particularly favourites of mine, but which worked so well live.
Jake Burns was his usual engaging self, chastising himself for sounding like a teacher at times, and I suppose Jake is quite a serious man – mentioning his bouts of depression or talking about child abuse in the song Guilty As Sin. Clearly we’re all with Jake, but I was struck with how odd it was to be sagely nodding along with his absolute worthy sentiments, when in a few moments we’d go back to throwing beer over each other. I’ve possibly seen them play sets where the track selection has more closely matched my own highlights, but hearing Barbed Wire Love and Johnny Was again were my picks of the night.
If you’ve never seen Stiff Little Fingers live before, you really should. A brilliant night is guaranteed, and if like me you’ve allowed yourself to become complacent, don’t, they’re a very special band indeed and there are few live acts that deliver more than Belfast’s finest.