Music > Live Reviews
Stiff Little Fingers @ the Waterfront
10/03/16
A wet and wild night in Norwich and it is to the Waterfront for an ever-so slightly delayed birthday party courtesy of Still Little Fingers.
First up, Ricky Warwick & The Fighting Hearts with a set of hard and heavy rock that brings to mind Thin Lizzy. Motorhead. AC/DC and - dare I say - tonight's headliners. I last saw Ricky Warwick back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (well, in 1992 at the Monsters of Rock festival) and he fronted the full force rockin’ machine that was The Almighty. Since then, his vocals have mellowed from a sub-Lemmy growl to something more rounded, more soulful, more Phil Lynott and frankly all the better for it. Mixing songs from new album When Patsy Cline Was Crazy (And Guy Mitchell Played The Blues), Black Star Riders' Finest Hour, a well-received cover of Tommy Gun and The Almighty's Jonestown Mind, this would have overshadowed the headliners on an ordinary night but this is no ordinary night….
Other than a brief hiatus in the eighties, Stiff Little Fingers have been around in one form or another for forty years. None of the band is exactly a whippersnapper but they put more energy in to their set than most bands a third of main man Jake Burn's age. You want classics, you got ‘em. Wasted Life, Fade Away, Roots, Guitar and Drum, the ever welcome Nobody's Hero. If Barbed Wire Love isn’t the best love song ever, it is certainly the best love song to come out of the punk era. Things mellow a little with Listen before a dedication to the late John Bradbury and Doesn't Make It Alright. It may have started life as a Specials song but here, complete with dub-style effects on the vox, SLF make it their own before blasting through Silver Lining. An acoustic guitar and harmonica come out for Guilty As Sin but don’t worry, our heroes haven’t mellowed and this is, lyrically, one of the hardest hitting songs of the night.
On it goes. At The Edge is followed by the Joe Strummer tribute of Strummerville, complete with the “CLASH! CLASH! CLASH CITY ROCKERS!” chant. Jake takes time out to talk about his depression before blasting through My Dark Places, Fly The Flag, When We Were Young, Tin Soldiers and closing the main set with the ever mighty Suspect Device.
For the encore, Gotta Getaway gets a rare and very welcome outing. And then it is Alternative Ulster. The day the opening riff to that song doesn't give me goose bumps is the day I book a one way trip to Dignitas.
Once again, SLF have blown the roof off the Waterfront and delivered a bloody amazing set. Several hundred other fans leave the venue satisfied and safe in the knowledge that they have just witnessed one of the best live bands around. I can almost guarantee SLF will be back here next March. Do yourself a favour. Get a ticket as soon as the date is announced.