It’s odd what brings people to
gigs. If it hadn’t been for RTM’s hatred of socialising we might not have seen
Billy Bragg in the first place. We had just started a new job in November 1999
and were desperate to get out of the works Christmas do the following month. It
happened to coincide with a Billy gig at Warwick Arts Centre, so we went with a
mate and a love of the Bard of Barking began.
We were musing on this tonight as
support Kim Churchill tells the story about why he ended up here. He was at a
folk festival in Canada and asked someone for a lift to the stage, that someone
was one Stephen William Bragg, who obliged and asked him to come out on tour.
The New South Wales Folkie is a
worthy – and welcome – addition. The young singer/songwriter is doing this type
of thing with a really interesting twist. He sings a song called “Smile As He
Goes Home” which is about his Grandad’s funeral, but is celebratory and
heartwarming, this mixes with “Bathed In Black” which is psychedelic and heavy.
He ends all this with a take on “Subterranean Homesick Blues” this, like the
rest of his set, is well worth checking out.
So Billy Bragg then. What is left
to say about him? It is thirty years this year since his incendiary debut mini
album “Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy” came out, and throughout that career he
has done everything with an honesty and a sense of humour that sets him apart
from the crowd.
RTM saw him back in June when he
gave a brilliant show in Stratford – Upon - Avon. He is exactly the same
tonight, and indeed seems totally re-invigorated by the “Tooth And Nail” album
he released earlier this year. Apparently recorded in a matter of days in
America with hot Producer Joe Henry, it is not only the best record he has put
out in years and years, but has taken Bragg – and his fine band – into
something of a country vein. In typical fashion, he bats this away with self-deprecation,
claiming he has turned into a “radical Kenny Rodgers, “ and plays “You Woke The
Neighbourhood” from his 1991 “Don’t Try
This At Home” album as if to prove he
has always been country anyway.
The set is broadly the same as
the one a few months ago, but does include “California Stars” which is
touchingly dedicated to Wilco’s Jay Bennett, who sadly died two years ago and “A
New England” returns to end things.
Bragg jokes that it doesn’t matter
what songs he plays, because over 30 years people don’t come to listen to sing
anyway. Whilst those who don’t know his work might focus on his politics (no
bad thing and RTM remains in agreement with most of his manifesto) this
neglects the fact that he is fabulous songwriter – one of the finest this
country has ever had – who is capable of writing a visceral “Never Buy The Sun”
but juxtaposing this with a quite brilliant “Handyman Blues,” a tale of why men
shouldn’t attempt DIY.
During the course of his two and
a quarter hours onstage Bragg tells us that he isn’t bothered about the 30 year
anniversary, but what is worth celebrating, he says, is that fact that after
all this time a room full of people in Birmingham still want to watch him.
If he surprised, he needn’t be.
He is Billy Bragg and he deserves all the audience he ever gets.
