Roots Radicals Rockers 2009
I first became aware of Stiff Little Fingers when I was at
school. One of the older, cooler kids had a Fingers design
painted on their school bag. Unfortunately at the time I was a
generation of music too late, being into New Wave rather than Punk.
Fast forward to early 2000s.
It
was when I went to a skate jam in Leicester that I first really heard
any SLF songs being played while a bunch of grown men shredded a
privately booked indoor skate park. Wanting to hear more, I
bought Hanx! Other CDs have followed... I first saw them
live in 2006 in Cambridge, along with Mike from the Aylesbury Friars website.
Maintaining the University City theme, I again saw them live on
the 28th of March 2009 in Oxford, this time taking my older sons with
me. Both gigs were without doubt very high up on the list of the
best I've seen! In fact, I think my boys would agree.
Certainly the older one enjoyed himself so much bouncing around
at the front of the stage that we had to leave before the encores as he
was pretty much exhausted! I'm guessing we missed Alternative
Ulster and Johnny Was, at least. The set list was a good mix of
material that every fan will be familiar with as well as some less
familiar and new stuff. All were very well received. No-one
seemed to mind in the slightest that Ali McMordie seemed to be having
technical difficulties with his amp during the first few songs,
something the technical guys got sorted pretty quick. (By way of
heaving the defective amp out of the way and replacing it, by the look
of it accompanied by Jake Burns doing a bit of distracting banter...)
All the guys were in exceedingly fine form, playing to a very
appreciative and pretty full house. Jake didn't waste too much
time in getting in a few words about one Simon Cowell. The
suggestion was that Mr. Cowell should perhaps review his dress sense.
Nice roomy shirts like Jake wears on stage instead of tight tops.
'But maybe that's just because I'm a fat bastard' was what JB
ended with, to finish off his observations on fashion. Anyway on
the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words, go to YouTube
and search for stiff little fingers oxford. Although
there's no footage of this weekends gig yet, there are a couple of
clips of the same venue (Under a different name?) from 2008.
You'll get the idea. Also, here are a few photos I managed
to grab on my phone.
Stiff Little Fingers:
Finally,
it'd be rude not to mention the special guests, Chelsea. Another
Punk band from the same era as SLF, they were pretty good despite
playing to only a few people and having no room to swing a cat on stage
with their gear and SLF's. I particularly enjoyed their closing
cover of I Fought the Law.
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created 30th March 2009