Music > Live Reviews

New Model Army

The Adrian Flux Waterfront

02/04/17

On the 24th February 1989 I got on a coach to Brum to visit a couple of friends who were at Aston University, it took many hours, followed by a cab ride to the sprawling campus and eventually I located my mate’s room. ‘Gone to see New Model Army at the Hummingbird, see you down there’ said the note pinned to the door, and so it was that I ended up seeing a band who I knew barely anything about. The gig was good, the weekend was great, but over the intervening years I have remained an NMA novice, only occasionally dipping back into their musical world.

I was very happy then to see them live again as I arrived at the Waterfront at the ridiculously early hour of 6.45pm, due to the club night enforced early finish, and joined the handful of punters to watch Wille & The Bandits. A blues and roots trio from Cornwall, they provided some decent early evening entertainment as the room gradually filled. Using a bowed electric double bass and lap steel guitar they were a lot more interesting than I had expected and at times reminded me of George Thorogood, Cream & ZZ Top. Not bad at all lads.

New Model Army are a band who attract a rabid fanbase. I almost felt like a fraud being there, because this was clearly a very big deal for the majority of the audience. Promoting their excellent recent album Winter, the band immediately impressed me with their mammoth sound - coming off the back of a long run of European dates, they were the complete well-oiled machine. Led, as they have been since their formation in 1980, by Justin Sullivan, their music has a timeless feel to it and defies genre pigeonholing. Often when you watch older bands it’s obvious when they are playing their newer material, but not with New Model Army - the crowd’s reaction to tracks off the new album were almost as committed as to the older tracks, indeed Born Feral was one of the highlights.

The other band members were brilliant musicians, and everything about the gig was a textbook example of how to put on a live show. That’s not to say that I don’t have a few criticisms; everyone was having a lot of fun, but it was also a very serious affair, Justin’s not exactly known for his between song banter and there were moments when it was all a bit too damn earnest for my tastes. Still, as the nearly two hour show progressed, I had that feeling less and less and the last 30 minutes were absolutely brilliant - Wonderful Way To Go was amazing and I Love The World had us all baying along. Such a good time was had that I barely even noticed that they hadn’t played my favourite NMA song Vengeance.

I’m not going to claim that I will immediately start listening to their entire back catalogue but, as a live music fan, during New Model Army’s gig the magic happened and I’d certainly like to think that I won’t leave it another 10,261 days before seeing them live again.