STIFF LITTLE FINGERS | LIVE REVIEW
Tramshed, Cardiff, Fri 9 Mar
Stiff Little Fingers released Inflammable Material, replete with one of the most iconic sleeves in punk, almost 40 years ago, long enough ago that my own mother saw the album tour pass through Cardiff’s long-defunct Top Rank venue. I asked her what they were like back when – she put down the sponge and thought back, beyond years of unhappy child-rearing. “Loud.”
The sheer anticipation Jake Burns and gang brought when they stepped out on a soaking Welsh Friday night was… incredible, actually. Musically, they’re tight as a nut. Energy-wise, they brought the house down. SLF are finish-your-beer-now-or-you’re-gonna-lose-it intense, and seconds into the first song, the aging crowd was a whirling pit of elbows and flying drinks. It proper kicked off.
The setlist: plenty from the Inflammable album (it’s a classic), and Nobody’s Heroes – and then some others that Burns freely admitted may have passed fans by. All killer, mind – their backlog has something many punk bands forget in the scramble to the safety pins: actual musicianship.
What separates SLF from many political punk acts (from the age of Thatcher, The Troubles, that ‘youth explosion’ you can still catch on BBC Four) is that there still seems to be a reason for them to be on stage. Brexit, Trump, Russian and US geopolitics all turn in the stomachs of the working-man today, and all got a shout out from Burns between tracks. Stepping back from the pit to wipe beer out of my eye, I thought I glimpsed what it might have looked like back when, that energy they still go on about. Is punk dead? Of course it is. But spread some of whatever the hell that was around and it could all kick off again tomorrow.
Cut out the politics claptrap though, and I still left the Tramshed drenched to the skin in beer, my sweat, everyone else’s sweat, and bruised, deaf, grinning like an idiot. The band were great, but the crowd was incredible; Cardiff outdid itself. Can’t be too many places in the world you can ignite the air like that. Final word on Stiff Little Fingers? Loud.
words JASON MACHLAB photos JONATHAN HERRON