Buzzcocks and The Stranglers live in Leeds: punk veterans in fine fettle
“Are you ready to rock, Leeds?” yells Steve Diggle, somewhere in Buzzzcocks’ 45-minute sonic blitzkrieg. The silver-haired guitarist turned 70 this year, but his schoolboy grins and excitable demeanour have been unchanged for decades, and he retains the curious mannerism of breaking off mid-solo to point at (a possibly imaginary) someone in the crowd.
“Are you ready to rock, Leeds?” yells Steve Diggle, somewhere in Buzzzcocks’ 45-minute sonic blitzkrieg. The silver-haired guitarist turned 70 this year, but his schoolboy grins and excitable demeanour have been unchanged for decades, and he retains the curious mannerism of breaking off mid-solo to point at (a possibly imaginary) someone in the crowd.
Following lead singer/main songwriter Pete Shelley’s death in 2018, Diggle is now the sole remaining founder member of the Manchester punks whose stellar singles and albums lit up the charts in the late ’70s, influencing the likes of REM, The Smiths and Nirvana. Accordingly, he makes sure his guitar-playing is centre-stage: delivered at ear-tingling volume with wails of feedback.
“What Do I Get?” and “I Don’t Mind” survive with distinctly ragged glory, although a slower “Orgasm Addict” is barely recognisable without Shelley’s inimitable nasal whine. Diggle’s voice is closer to Francis Rossi’s than his late bandmate’s, but although “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have?)” still sounds wonderful, these current Buzzcocks fare best when not judged against superior earlier versions. The jangling “Manchester Rain” is the best song Diggle’s penned in decades, and a hurtling, slightly overly-extended “Harmony In My Head” reminds everyone it wasn’t always Shelley who wrote those glorious hit singles.
Similarly, only bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel, 73, remains from the days when The Stranglers set out from Guildford touring in drummer Jet Black’s ice cream van, prior to their emergence during punk. However, Sunderland singer-guitarist Baz Warne has now been a Strangler for 25 years, his tenure going on double that of original singer Hugh Cornwell, who went solo in 1990.
Together, Warne and Burnel have navigated the ship through all kinds of troubled waters including declining chart fortunes, line-up changes and more recently the deaths of Black and keyboard player Dave Greenfield. However, 2021’s Dark Matters was their best album in decades and returned them to the Top 5. It’s impressive that they are celebrating their 51st year in bigger venues than in their chart-conquering heyday, and with young faces in the crowd.
As their numerous punk-era brushes with authority signposted, The Stranglers have always ploughed their own furrow. Here, an intriguing, masterfully restrained setlist showcases how effectively the “Meninblack” have ceaselessly reinvented themselves yet always sounded inimitably, incorrigibly like The Stranglers.
There’s playful electro-pop (“Thrown Away”, “Pin-Up”), gorgeously gentle balladry (“Strange Little Girl”), and the evergreen “Golden Brown”, which patented the unlikely Top 3 formula of a song reputedly about heroin, performed in waltz time.
“Was It You?” and “Always The Sun”’s ruminations on authoritarianism and division are arguably even more relevant now. On the evening that the Duke Of York relinquishes his titles, Warne pointedly updates “Peaches” to observe: “I can think of worse places to be… like in Prince Andrews’s head.”
Meanwhile, the newest stuff sounds fabulous: brooding dark epics laced with reggae, chamber pop or orchestral-type sections, which show their inventiveness is ongoing. Although their catalogue is rich enough for them to ignore big hitters including “Walk On By” and “Nice ’N’ Sleazy” in favour of 1977’s “Mean To Me” – a Feelgoods-y romp performed for only the third time in their career – the last 25 minutes include a quartet of copper-bottomed classics.
Throughout, former punk ‘enfant terrible’ Burnel seems unusually wistful, as if realising that now, this late in the day, each moment must be savoured. Warne is obviously joking when he quips “See you in another 51 years”, but with over half a century on the clock, The Stranglers are in formidably fine fettle.
THE STRANGLERS SET LIST: Goodbye Toulouse Straighten Out Was It You? Skin Deep 15 Steps 5 Minutes Tramp Instead Of This Strange Little Girl Golden Brown Thrown Away Pin Up Peaches Mercury Rising White Stallion Dead Ringer Breathe Something Better Change Duchess Hanging Around ENCORE Always The Sun Mean To Me No More Heroes
BUZZCOCKS SET LIST What Do I Get? I Don’t Mind Promises Senses Out Of Control Sick City Sometimes Why Can’t I Touch It? Destination Zero Orgasm Addict Manchester Rain Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have?) Harmony In My Head
