The Stranglers at the o2 Academy, Liverpool. 2014. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
This is the Gospel according to the Men In Black, to the musicians who have shaped more than one generation’s musical taste; the men who stuck two fingers up to the doubters, the unbelievers, the down-right miserable and doom laden and who have had the final incredible laugh for the last 40 years. The sermon to the already converted and to those who have come along in the intervening years, the thank you to all who gave The Stranglers room in the heart and who filled the room at The Academy in Liverpool to bursting. The Gospel surely reads, “Thank You.”
There are not many bands that can fill the 02 Academy year after year, gig after unrelenting spellbound gig and leave the audience completely and utterly enraptured with the spectacle that has unfolded before them.
The band has reached their 40th Anniversary, the ruby birthday and yet they still deliver a set as if it was an honour. This is not a band that goes through the mill when they play, it is 100 per cent or nothing, each and every time. Even with the legendary Jet Black taking a back seat and letting the power and flair of drummer and friend to the band Jim Macauley lead Baz Warne, J.J. Burnel and Dave Greenfield through the majority of the evening, this was something special to behold.
The Stranglers have been singing for years that there are No More Heroes anymore, and in a world which somehow idolises the sometimes vacuous and despairingly hollow, the band surely typify that there are still some heroes, champions worthy of wanting to actually be and as they progressed through a set which contained tracks such as London Lady, No More Heroes, the underrated Was It You, the slippery and yet wonderfully demanding Peaches, the beautiful Midnight Summer Dream, the growling, panther like Skin Deep, the stupendous Nice ‘N’ Sleazy and the charm of Norfolk Coast, there wouldn’t have been a single person inside the venue who couldn’t taste the history sweating out of J.J.’s bass, the 40 year chronicle of keyboards and the dynamic power and seeming narration of Baz Warne’s guitar, all topped off by the memory of thousands of gigs.
No Stranglers gig would ever be complete without Golden Brown, there would be police sirens racing towards which ever venue the band were playing at ready to hold back the possible quiet riot if they did, but with that classic, the gorgeous Strange Little Girl and Always The Sun being part of an extended encore, police were not required, the possible groans muted and in the end what was heard was the respect and adoration of a thousand memories jostling for position in the light of much loved British institution.
If the Gospel, the upbeat love letter from The Stranglers was delivered with aplomb, the not quite final flourish of a group who have beaten time itself and the many that specialise in damning criticism that have stood in the way for many years, then the response from all inside the Academy to each and every one on stage and those that made the band their home for a while was unequivocal, unambiguous and as clear as the drum beat provided by Jet Black for a few of the most important minutes of the evening; “Thank You for letting us be part of it too.”
An astounding gig by The Stranglers, venom, smiles, the creeping satisfaction of a job well done and yet still enough inside them to be the butt of their own joke as one missed beat led to the greatest of self-induced sarcasm you are likely to hear at a gig. Glorious!
Ian D. Hall