The Stranglers - Cambridge Corn Exchange - 22nd March 2013

After my interview with Baz Warne I got a couple of free tickets to The Stranglers' Cambridge date, so myself went along 'guest-list style' to see them. Here's the review I sent to Grapevine Live...

Friday night in Cambridge was shaken by those veterans of the punk scene, The Stranglers. With a fantastic following there was no reason this was going to be anything other than enjoyable and after my interview with front man Baz Warne a few weeks back I was really looking forward to this.

The support was The Godfathers. Not a band I’m familiar with but a quick history lesson from a flyer lead me to believe they have a lot going on. They were once ‘Sid Presley Experience’ but some-time in the mid-eighties they broke up and The Godfathers were formed. So they’ve been in the business a long time and are one of the few survivors of the punk era, but ‘punk’ is a very broad term so rather than the obvious Sex Pistols and Stiff Little Fingers punk style, Godfathers almost felt a bit rockabilly at times.

Their biggest hit, the cheerily titled ‘Birth School Work Death’ is a real punk classic, plenty of fists raised in the crowd and the angst and frustration that goes along with it. Of course no live punk set would be complete without shooting down a heckler or two, and Godfathers did so in graceful style with the line ‘nobody is here to see you... twaaat’, which got a good cheer and we were all ready, to grab another beer, then see The Stranglers.

Blimey, where to start? The Stranglers have been around a while, a couple of line up changes here and there but still fundamentally the same, no nonsense, just good songs and a few laughs along the way. 

The set-list as a whole was flawless with the obligatory classics like ‘Golden Brown’ and ‘Peaches’, some great crowd participation for ‘Always the sun’. Newer ones like ‘Time was once on my side’ and even lesser heard tracks like ‘Toiler on the Sea’ and the properly punk ‘Something Better Change’ were just as well received as The Stranglers superb following were well up for it.

I was surprised by the amazingly bright back drop, I was expecting an ordinary band logo banner but the array of patterns and colours illuminating the stage was a clear indication that the band are going all out on this tour.

Plenty of jumping and cheers throughout but having not seen them live before I did wonder where drummer Jet Black was, but worries were quashed when he stepped up to rapturous applause to replace the brilliant first half drummer, Jim McCauley (who would later come back to play at the same time as Black for the finale).

There was a bit of an odd moment when Baz pointed out that there were youngsters (presumably with their parents) in the crowd and the lucky little blighters ended up in front of the barrier to prevent what would have been an inevitable injuries. Later on though, Baz almost looked a little embarrassed when he said the kids should cover their ears before playing the straight to the point love song of sorts, ‘Bring on the Nubiles’. But it’s always good to see such a broad range of ages enjoying properly good music.

The biggest response from the crowd came after a cheeky bass moment from JJ in which we were asked ‘can you feel it..?’ The answer was a resounding yes before ‘No more heroes’ got the room collectively bouncing with all manner of loutishness focused on the centre of the floor. Plenty of knocking about and the high spirits seemed to hang around afterwards with everybody grinning as they left the Corn Exchange.