Hoping for a bounce back tonight, in more ways than one… following an indifferent Interpol gig last time out, mine hosts tonight are recently reformed (well, 3/4s of them, anyway…) 90’s Britpop stalwarts The Boo Radleys. Well, actually, lumping the Boos in with the Britpop crowd, an era which not only celebrated boorish misogynistic laddishness but also produced some crushingly dull landfill indie (step forward The Bluetones, Embrace and the kings of all dullards, O-bloody-a-bloody-sis), does them quite the disservice… similar to the likes of Pulp and Suede, the Boos were ploughing their own idiosyncratic furrow well before “Loaded” started sticking rock bands and union jacks on their covers, producing a work of widescreen 60’s infused psychedelic indie-pop excellence in 1993’s “Giant Steps” and taking a quantum leap forward from their difficult, more shoegazey origins in the process. And this tour promised a 30th Anniversary full run-through of this enduring and sprawling masterpiece. It’s going to feel weird hearing this material without its’ author and sole missing original Boo, guitarist and friend-of-a-friend (hi Corin!) Martin Carr as part of the line-up, but these songs deserve to be heard, so I grabbed tix before this one ultimately sold out.
Next up were the Boo Radleys! They took the stage in front of a thankfully fuller crowd and to a pastoral backing track at 8.15, then burst into the lush descending hook of equally 60’s-influenced opener “Find The Answer Within”, before black-clad vocalist Sice, resembling Frank Black’s Scouse nephew (!), scolded himself (“you can tell it’s been awhile; Sice, remember to turn your amp on!”) then gave us the heads-up on tonight’s proceedings. A brief career-spanning set first, then “Giant Steps” later… So, this opening 40 minutes touched on some post-Britpop stuff (the lazy, hazy summery vibe of “From The Bench At Belvedere”), recent post-reunion material (a funky “The Unconscious” about Sice’s psychoanalysis experiences (!) and “Full Syringe” a Fanclub-like chunky Big Star rocker with lovely 3-part harmonies, a happy feature throughout both sets) and a couple of older deep cuts to finish (the dramatic moody proto-shoegaze “Finest Kiss” and my set highlight, the juxtaposition of the splendid undulating guitar hook and dissonant verse of oldie “Lazy Day”), all played with verve and no little humour, sounding clear, splendid and well balanced, and promising much for the main set.
But
we were building up to one thing… “we released this twice to get it into the
charts! Neither worked, so we had to write “Wake Up Fucking Boo”!” quipped
Sice, before the languid dub and trumpet embellished opening of “Lazarus”
suddenly burst into strident anthemic life, the soaring majesty of The Boo
Radley’s finest hour easily tonight’s highlight for me. Brilliant. Sice, who’d
been an affable and chatty frontman throughout, a perma-grin never far from his
features, then dedicated jaunty, Beatles-esque closer “The White Noise
Revisited” to Martin Carr, “who wrote the whole damn thing,” rounding off a set
which felt like a celebration of a seminal and still wonderfully melodic 90’s
album. That wasn’t it, though, as Sice and Tim popped out for brief chats; I
told Sice my Martin Carr “litany of tunelessness” story, and he insisted on
checking out the 90’s Boo Radleys setlist that Martin had referred to in that
way (from their Portsmouth 1995 gig, no. 290)! Lovely bloke, and both he and
Tim were complimentary of my dancing along (Sice commenting, “you looked as if
you were having a great time!” my rejoinder being, “I was, but the bloke who was
having a better time was you!”). I eventually tore myself away for a difficult
exit out of Reading (getting stopped by every! Single! Fucking! Red! Light!)
and midnight arrival home. A great one, this; expectations exceeded by some
distance… a proper Boo Radley bounce back!
Spot on review! They sounded great. As for the size of the crowd, initially, I personally had 5 trains cancelled and eventually paid £50 for an Uber!
ReplyDeleteFun pop fact. One of my wife's step-sisters mimed the saxophone on the TOTP performance of 'Wake Up Boo'!
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