SLEAFORD MODS / LIINES | LIVE REVIEW
Y Plas, Cardiff University Students Union, Fri 5 Apr
Liines are aptly named – every song of a relentless, rapid-fire set takes a linear trajectory from A to B in under three minutes, exhibiting a steadfast avoidance of hesitation and deviation that would win them favour with Nicholas Parsons. The Mancunian trio are well placed to fill the void left by Savages’ apparent hiatus, and Zoe McVeigh has Carrie Brownstein’s vocals on speed dial – but the fact that they lack the crucial element of surprise prevents them from making a real impact.
To say Sleaford Mods have made a real impact over the last five years would be an understatement. In public Jason Williamson regularly baulks at repeatedly being acclaimed as a spokesman for broken Britain, but in private he must surely concede that scathing assessments of the contemporary national malaise on releases entitled Austerity Dogs, Divide And Exit and English Tapas have actively courted such identification; indeed, in interviews he does still talk about the importance of making music from “the street”.
However, Sleaford Mods’ success – heavy rotation on 6 Music, packed-out gigs like tonight’s, the attendant financial rewards – has come at a price: “the street” is increasingly far away. As a result it’s harder to see Williamson and accomplice Andrew Fearn as outsider underdogs, to hear someone who now calls Nottingham’s middle-class enclave West Bridgford home declaring “We all live in a shithole”, to imagine a man whose lyrics have been published by Faber & Faber waking up “with shit in my sock outside the Polish off-licence” (as the fantastic lyrics to Tied Up In Nottz have it).
It’s a problem with which a conflicted Williamson has evidently been grappling, as manifested in recent pot-calling-kettle-black criticism of IDLES and on new album Eton Alive, the first on their own Extreme Eating label. “You’ve had a record deal for nearly 30 years / What do you know about agencies, looking for jobs, shit wages?” he asks career musicians on lead single Kebab Spider, apparently ignoring the fact that the experiences recounted in encore crowdpleaser Jobseeker are no longer his own. Yet on O.B.C.T. he does concede that his circumstances have changed: “You know I just fantasise in a house three times the size of my old one.”
Williamson has made previous attempts to come to terms with the changing nature of daily life, with ageing and parenthood as well as success – most notably TCR, one of the evening’s many high points – but such moments of self-reflection are more common and conspicuous on Eton Alive. Take Subtraction, for instance, which also demonstrates the growing sophistication of beatmaker Fearn’s contributions to the partnership, or Top It Up, on which the disgusted singer turns his back on vacuous hedonism, no longer Mr Williamson the Jobcentre client “with drugs to take and a mind to break”.
He may now be fuelled by nothing more potent than caffeine, but on stage he’s no less wired and magnetic – the agitated, twitchy yin to Fearn’s placid, press-play-and-nod yang. However, where once he seemed thrust uncomfortably into the spotlight, now he positively revels in it. He’s still regularly at risk of bursting blood vessels, and the charity buckets rattling with change that pass through the audience are presumably oversized swear jars, but there’s also an increasingly camp joviality to his performance, not least whenever he breaks into the can-can. What comes across most clearly tonight is his humour: the exaggeratedly posh “Oh no” chorus of Kebab Spider, Stick In A Five And Go’s fantasy of taking revenge on a social media abuser by pretending to be a postman and tracking him down, TCR’s depiction of Torquay (“Everyone still looks like Ena Sharples and Ray Reardon / People need to move on, that 50s look can do one / Elvis has definitely left the fucking building”).
Crowdsurfers crowdsurf (one nearly coming over the top of the sound desk), Williamson emerges for the encore wearing the shirt of the local Under-9s football team they sponsor, and the night ends with Fearn taking photos of the crowd, grinning and shaking his head, humbled and astonished by the warmth of a reception they thoroughly deserve.
words BEN WOOLHEAD