1,141 THE PETE WYLIE SHOW, Birmingham O2 Academy 3, Friday 7th June 2019

Ridiculously, given that his debut Wah! Heat… album “Nah=Poo; The Art Of Bluff” was part of my teenage voyage of post-punk discovery in the early 80’s, tonight marked the first time I’d ever seen Pete Wylie “live” in his own right… Wylie was the self-confessed maverick motormouth and self-publicist from that amazingly fertile Eric’s/ Liverpool post-punk scene, the least prolific of the “Crucial Three” triumvirate which included Julian Cope and the Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch yet arguably the most commercially successful, with the anthemic earworm likes of “Come Back”, “Sinful” and particularly “The Story Of The Blues” bothering the upper reaches of the singles charts in the 80’s. Seemingly also the most gig-shy as well; I’d only seen him once before, with Dead Men Walking at Swindon Arts Centre in 2001 (gig 535), an Oxford gig on a recent tour having been cancelled after I’d gotten tix (bah!), so when facebook friend Russ advertised a spare ticket for this Birmingham show, I quickly took it up, relishing the chance to right both an ancient and recent wrong!

Made arrangements to meet up with Russ and hit the road straight from work at 4, only to get a call from the man to advise that a family emergency would preclude his attendance. Russ kindly pdf’ed me over the tickets and I parked up in my pre-booked Horsefair car park slot after a difficult Friday night traffic-affected drive up, thence needing a run into New Street station to find a loo! Wandered into the Academy 3; the smallest of this complex of venues, this was a tiny 250-capacity ground floor room, deserted early doors whilst a couple of blokes were feverishly working on a fairly elaborate stage set-up – a gazebo frame with banners, twinkling lights and “Pete Sounds” t-shirts suspended from it! The man himself emerged to briefly oversee events, evoking memories of that time Wayne Coyne got handy with a spanner to set up The Flaming Lips’ gong in Oxford on that Mercury Rev support tour (gig 405). Sat and watched the place (very) slowly fill up until a loo trip predictably saw me lose my seat, so took a wander down the front instead.

At 8.30 prompt, Wylie’ young sidekick Anders took the stage and switched on a rocking rhythm on a PC, then Wylie emerged, rounded and resplendent in black, topped with a red scarf, quipping immediately about his wingman; “I booked a tour and he booked a holiday! We’re lucky to have him [tonight] – next week I’ll be pushing my own buttons!”, then, in response to some good-natured heckling, Wylie evoked Liverpool’s recent Champion’s League win and laid into his host city’s football clubs, “we’ve only got one shit team in our town!”

It became immediately apparent that I’d need to quickly remove the stick from my ass about “taped” performances; I have a real problem with that, dating back to that execrable PWEI Reading 1991 performance (gig 191), and even recently laid into a support act who used pre-recordings, dismissing them as “goth karaoke”. Yet here was one of my post-punk icons only playing guitar “live”, and using bass and drum pre-recordings… Wylie however made the point that this would be the only way he could perform “live” (“I don’t know any Liverpool musicians anymore, and I can’t afford musicians not from Liverpool!”), confirmed that he’d played all the recordings himself, then announced; “hope you enjoy it – and if you don’t – fuck off!” Fair enough then! He kicked off with newie “I Still Believe”, a big heroic flag waver and almost a companion piece to Frank Turner’s song of the same name, equally as impassioned and topical, and featuring a lyric “it makes no difference if you disagree, ‘cos I’m taking ‘bout me, yeah, I’m talking ‘bout me” which may as well have been a metaphor for the whole night!

Tonight was indeed an astonishing insight into Wylie the musician and Wylie the man; musically this was a supreme performance, the likes of “Fourelevenfortyfour” and “Sinful” anthemic singalong highlights of the opening set, standing proud next to an acerbic yet utterly joyful “The Day That Margaret Thatcher Died”. The between song banter was equally as memorable, veering from disarmingly honest (“I’ve had a brilliant 20 year career – over 40 years” and “I’ve had mental health battles – they’re mostly skirmishes now”) to side-achingly funny (commenting on the rainy journey down, “at one point we saw a dolphin get run over,” and elaborating on his early 90’s health issues with, “I broke my back in 1991 and was gutted as I couldn’t die like a Rockstar! I’d have been rich – dead but rich…!”) yet the love of music ran through his core like a stick of rock (“music saved my life – and nearly killed me too – it’s a trade-off!”). Plenty of time too, to celebrate those who walked alongside him on the journey, including a couple of numbers poignantly dedicated to old partner Josie Jones, lost 3 years ago.

A short pause followed a 1 hour 10 opening set, the second set opening fittingly with “Come Back”, probably my highlight of a night of so many – epic, widescreen and soaring doesn’t start to do it justice… newie “People (The Rise Of Dunning-Kruger)” had an explanatory preamble (Dunning-Kruger apparently being a theory about stupid people being too stupid to realise how stupid they’re being – plenty of them in the world right now!) before Wylie introduced the song itself as his take on an anti-racist song in the style of the Beach Boys! He bolted on a fat acoustic for a genuinely affecting “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory” before ranting through a dark, dramatic and punky “Seven Minutes To Midnight”, sideswiping the idiot Number 45 in the process. Ultimately, the inevitable “Story Of The Blues” finished off an amazing 2 hour+ performance, Wylie leaving us with fulsome compliments – “I fucking love it here; it’s not true what they say!” before returning for the “Blues Reprise” after the lights had come on, leaving us with the salient comments of, “there’s no fake news, there’s just lies!” and “we’re gonna win – because we’ve gotta win – for the future!”. The man cares. Deeply. Still. Just… wow.

And an exemplary evening was capped by a pic and quick words with the great man, before an equally difficult squally rain-affected run home. Despite the tapes, this was stunning stuff from a captivating singer, raconteur and performer with charisma and chutzpah to throw away. Tonight it was a privilege to see him finally perform, after so many years, and hopefully this first time won’t be the last time!