Stiff Little Fingers
It is easy to take Stiff Little Fingers for granted. Like clockwork, it is March and SLF are coming to the Waterfront again. And yet, every twelve months, they pack the place out and deliver what will be one of the gigs of the year.
This year is a little bit special. It is SLF’s fortieth anniversary and they are bringing Ruts DC along as support.
Formed in 1977, the Ruts were amongst the cream of the second wave of UK punk, with a dub reggae influence that gave them an edge over a lot of the contemporaries. Following the death of frontman Malcolm Owen in July 1980, the three surviving Ruts regrouped as Ruts DC before splitting in 1983. With the illness and eventual passing of guitarist Paul Fox, the rhythm section of Segs and Ruffy have – along with guitarist Leigh Heggarty – been touring and recording again as Ruts DC since 2007.
With an intro tape of Dr. Alimantado’s Best Dressed Chicken In Town and covering everything from debut Ruts LP The Crack to current album Music Must Destroy, this was a strong set, that go the audience skanking and pogoing by turns. Old favourites like Staring At The Rude Boys, Jah War, In A Rut and the absolute, stone-cold classic that is Babylon’s Burning got me more than the newer stuff. That said, newies like Kill The Pain and the very New Rose-ish Psychic Attack are bloody great on wax and decent enough live. Maybe it is just a question of familiarity?
After that tasty appetiser from Ruts DC, it is time for the main event and the mighty Stiff Little Fingers. Centre stage, lead vocalist and guitarist Jake Burns is as entertaining and engaging as ever. He and bassist Ali McMordie, drummer Ian McCallum and guitarist Steve Grantley put more energy – far more energy – into their set than bands a third of their age.
After the intro tape of the band’s own instrumental Go For It, the band go straight into Wait and See and tear through the seventeen song set like their lives depend on it. There is the high energy punk rock’n’ roll of Nobody’s Hero and Gotta Getaway. Can’t Believe In You gets a rare outing before the dub-punk-reggae of Roots Radicals Rockers & Reggae and the melodic power-pop-punk of Safe As Houses. Barbed Wire Love goes down as well as ever.
New song Tilting At Windmills proves that, however good humoured and amusing Jake Burns can be between songs – and he is both – the righteous anger that fuelled the early songs still burns bright. Of the rest of the set, Just Fade Away, Is That What You Fought The War For?, The Specials’ Doesn’t Make It Alright, At The Edge and Suspect Device are the highlights. Of course, there is an encore of Marley’s Johnny Was and Alternative Ulster. As I have said here before, the day that the opening chords of Alternative Ulster don’t give me goose bumps will be the day I book myself into Dignitas.
The crowd is a pleasing mix of the young and not so young. There is some intense but friendly slam-dancing and pogoing going down in the pit and a far-from-threatening stage invader. SLF are a band that can be guaranteed to deliver a storming set and tonight may just be the best show I have seen from them for a good few years.
I can say with some certainty that SLF will be back here in twelve months, give or take a week or two, I have said it before and I will no doubt say it again. Do yourselves a favour. When tickets go on sale, get yourselves in the queue. They really are one of the best bands around and always, ALWAYS, play a blinder.
