They came on at 7-30 to quite a big crwd seeing as they were the first band of the night. Think of a cross between The Pogues,The Levellers and The Exploited and that’s what you got with them. I was impressed and so were many others judging by the dancing and foot-tapping and applause after each song.
Next were the mighty Goldblade who came on at 8-30 to a heaving Academy which was by now very nearly full. First thing John Robb does is ask the audience where they are from to which I shout ‘Tetbury’ but he said he did’nt know where that was. I then shout out Burning Up time to which he replies great song and great web site
then he asks ‘are you gizzard?’ to which I reply yes and he then reaches out and shakes my hand. We were then treated to 40 mins of pure quality songs. In no particular order- My Name Is Pyscho, Fighting In The Dancehall,Black Elvis,Back Street Radical, Strictly Hardcore, Intoxication, Do You Believe In The Power Of Rock n Roll plus a few others(memorys gone astray somewhere).
John said that they had just been touring the States and were ‘Jet-lagged to Fuck’ well they certainly did’nt show it and if they felt knackered well I like to see a gig when they were really tired.
All over to soon but then it was time for SLF. The Go For It intro kicked in around 9-30 and on they came to a rousing reception and then straight into Tin Soliders. Yes the set is pretty much the same as previous tours but I know a certain other band who do the same…
From then on we got all the classics- Nobody’s Hero, Wasted Life, At The Edge, Just Fade Away, It Does’nt Make It Alright to name a few.
My personal highlights were Barbed Wire Love, Fly The Flags and Bits of Kids.
Jake was suffering big time with his voice and kept apologising to the audience as he had a heavy cold and at one point a roadie came on with a glass of Lemsip which must be a first at a Fingers gig! He looked really pissed off at times as his voice was’nt up to the usual standard(there was a message put on the SLF forums saying that Jake wanted to aplogise to all who were at the gig regarding his voice and that when they were back in Bristol they would play a two hour set to make up) and alas we did’nt get Johnny Was but the set closed with a storming Suspect Device and Alternative Ulster.
The beer throwing wankers
were also back out last night(must be a Bristol ‘thing’ as it has happened at Damned and Buzzcocks and previous SLF gigs. Overall another great night with Fingers and the ever improving Goldblade, had a quick chat with John again afterwards and found out they playing in Gloucester in april and May.
