Stiff Little Fingers

It is time for my annual pilgrimage to see STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

It is time for my annual pilgrimage to see STIFF LITTLE FINGERS. SLF are the single most reliable band I know. I know more-or-less exactly what I am going to get: an hour and a half or so of quality songs played by a darned fine rock band. And if that sounds like faint praise, it is absolutely not. Fingers always play a set that few can match.

I’ve seen Stiff Little Fingers play longer sets – or, at least, with more songs – than tonight but it is one of the best shows I have seen from the, for a good while. Both mainstay Jake Burns and Ian McCallum are in fine voice and lay down some cracking riffs and solos. At the back, Steve Grantley propels it along with powerhouse drumming. Stage left, original bassist Ali McMordie (who rejoined in 2006) is an absolute livewire. Of course, we don’t judge by appearance but McMordie also happens to be one of the coolest looking bassists in rock.

SLF were the first punk band from Northern Ireland to release a record – beating both the Undertones and the criminally overlooked Rudi to that achievement – but their sound quickly evolved beyond punk. Like Burns’ heroes the Clash, Fingers embraced reggae but also added ska, powerpop and even doo-wop to their arsenal.

The set takes in sixteen songs plus a two-song encore. As has become customary, the intro tape is Fingers’ own instrumental Go For It - where else will you find a crowd “singing” along to an instrumental intro tape – before bursting into a raging Tin Soldiers and segueing into an equally raging Nobody’s Hero. I could’ve done without the beer shower when things kick-off but I can’t fault the crowd’s commitment and energy. SLF’s high energy take on Bunny Wailer’s Roots Radics Rockers Reggae follows. Later in the set comes the relatively rarely played Walking Dynamite followed two songs later by the near perfect guitar-pop one-two of Bits of Kids – my favourite SLF song that isn’t Alternative Ulster – and Listen To Your Heart. As Jake says in his between song spiel, the cover of the Specials’ Doesn’t Make It Alright is not only different to the original, it is better. And things don’t get much better than the closing quartet of Fade Away, Wasted Life, Gotta Getaway and Suspect Device.

Of course, things don’t end there and there is an encore. Being honest, I don’t like Fingers’ recorded version of Bob Marley’s Johnny Was but it never fails to work live. The opening to Alternative Ulster is a genuine hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment. Tonight is no exception and it is the perfect closer.

Norfolk-based TRIGGERED VELOCITY open the evening and it would perhaps be unfair to form an opinion based on this show. For a good portion of the set, the sound is, ahem, less than kind to their relatively pacey, stomp-along grunge. With strong vocals, powerful drums, rapid fire riffing – sometimes straying into Metallica-style chugathons (and I’m old enough to remember when that wasn’t a bad thing) – and classic rock soloing, this owes a fair amount to late 80s/early 90s Seattle. To me, though, it is more reminiscent of the mid-90s Britrock (which, frankly, was more a Kerrang! invention than a scene) of Wildhearts, Honeycrack or Dollface. It’s decent enough and gets a good response from the still relatively sparse crowd but doesn’t quite ignite for me. One to check out again, methinks.