Gig Review

The Stranglers
Birmingham, Academy
13th March 2010
   
          
The Stranglers             
                   
Photo Of The Stranglers © Copyright TriggerTonight was my second visit to the newly opened and newly situated Academy in Birmingham, once again once we parked up in Birmingham we had a mission getting to the Academy due to the fact that have to walk all the way up one road to go down a subway to walk all the way back down the other side of the road to get to the venue which is a bit annoying, anyway after what felt like a 30minute walking journey to get to the venue we made our way in and to my pleasant surprise the venue was nowhere near as busy as it was last time I attended which was back in December for Marilyn Manson.

We got in just as the support band were finishing their last song, now I don’t know who the support band were as they were not advertised anywhere for the show and they also had no merchandise for sale, but as I only saw the last 3 minutes of their set I don’t really have much of a need or urge to find out who they were in a hurry.

There was a good 30minute break whilst the road crew got the stage and equipment ready for The stranglers, in this time I headed off to have a disgusting £2.60 watered down pint of Coke which actually had an iceberg floating in as the Academy is well known for its watered down Coke which features a full glass of ice chunks merged together, anyway whilst enjoying my Coke I had a look around at the crowd and it was dominated by people in their late 40’s and 50’ which left me feeling quite young which is a first for a gig as these days gig’s are normally filled with your 14 year old scene kids but as these 14 year old scene kids weren’t even born when The Stranglers started off they were nowhere in sight.

Photo Of The Stranglers © Copyright TriggerAfter what felt like many hours passing by the lights went dim and The Stranglers took to the stage to the spinney instrumental piece of ‘Waltzinblack’, as this piece was played and The band members took their place on stage, the venue erupted with cheers from the clearly excited older crowd that was in the building tonight.

The set up The Stranglers had tonight was slightly odd as Jett black and Dave Greenfield were situated at the back of the stage up a massive platform with Jett Blacks high rise drum kit pretty much covering him up so you could only see his face from certain directions and Dave Greenfields massive set up of four keyboards pretty much covering him up fully with his head poking out over the top to the lucky few what had a good view, Jean-Jacques Burnel was situated to the left hand side of the stage and Baz Warne was situated to the right hand side of the stage and there was massive empty spaces in the middle of the stage which looked odd but once again that was all down to where you were stood in the venue.

The show had a bit of a slow start and left the crowd looking a bit dry and bored but as soon as the open note of ‘Golden Brown’ was played about 7 song’s in the crowd got moving singing-a-long word for word with a few select people jumping around showing their appreciation to The Stranglers whilst having the time of their life, in fact the crowd got into the band so much in the end that one lucky teenage managed to jump over the barrier and on to the stage and then seconds later the biggest security guard I have ever seen chased him and threw him off the stage, as soon as the song finished ‘Baz Warne’ took to the mic to say “You were very fucking lucky there, normally our security guard would fuck someone up for doing that” and in this respect is how I class the kid as lucky.

Photo Of The Stranglers © Copyright TriggerThe Stranglers played many of their hit songs such as ‘Peaches’, ‘Walk On By’, Sugar Bullets’ and even their current single ‘Retro Rockets’, they played two en-cores and finally finished their set with ‘No More Heroes’ which had the whole venue singing-a-long word for word for the very last time of the night, the sound did start to crackle a bit at the end of the set during ‘No More Heroes’ but the power managed stayed on for The Stranglers to finish in style.

As mentioned above the gig was very slow paced to start with and actually quite boring, but by the end of the night The Stranglers had the audience in the palm of their hands as they were fully in control, and it was so good seeing Jean-Jacques Burnel knocking out his killer basslines as his bass work is so different than anyone else’s and really has that 70’s feel about it, whilst the legend that is the 71 year old Jet Black played the drums like it was his last ever show also got the biggest chant of the evening which I am sure was probably heard outside of the venue, the stranglers may be getting on but they showed no sign at all of slowing down tonight.

The Stranglers 4/5

Review By Trigger

 The Stranglers


Jean-Jacques Burnel
Baz Warne
Jet Black
Dave Greenfield

 Band Related Links
The Stranglers Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?