They
think it’s all over… but it isn’t, well, not just yet…
Just
as I was thinking that my 2023 gigging year had come to a close, thanks to my
scheduled knee replacement surgery, fate deals a different hand to me, with the
last-minute (as in, I’m standing in my hospital-issue gown ready to go to
theatre last-minute!) postponement of said procedure, for totally
understandable reasons actually. So instead of a weekend in hospital and up to
8 weeks out of gigging action (I’ll have that to look forward to early next
year now…), the weekend opened up to me, and I could join The Big Man for a
trip up the hill to see XLSF, the ersatz line-up of veteran Belfast punks
fronted by former – and original – Stiff Little Fingers guitarist Henry Cluney.
We’d caught them down at the old Level 3 just over 10 years ago (gig 889), in one
of their first ever gigs; frankly, it showed a little, with a fun but uneven
set which wasn’t a patch on Jake Burns’ current SLF incarnation. But hey, I’ve
suddenly got a free night, so I was up for seeing how Henry and co. have come
on in the intervening years…
Drove
up and parked up behind the Roaring Donkey, grabbing the last spot on a busy
pre-Christmas Friday night out, then met Rich in the Vic, also running into
Debby and old Level 3 face Pete Murphy (no, not that one…!). Heard noise
emanating from the back room venue, so wandered in at 10 to 9 to see openers
The Deckchairs. A veteran bunch from Bracknell, as we soon found out thanks to
their love song for their home town, which featured the line, “your
girlfriend’s mates are all chavs!”, they were fronted by a chap who I thought
was a dead ringer for my old punk mate Ian Leighton, and kicked up a primitive
late 70’s punk rock racket reminiscent of a lot of second division bands of
that time (Shapes, Drones, Last Words et al). Lots of scatological references
(one number called “My Dick’s Bigger Than Yours”, for example, although we
missed the one about inflatable girlfriends!), and I liked the jolly “Wanker In
An Audi” which concluded with a bit of the old 70’s “Likely Lads” TV programme
theme! The singer rounded off this fun mess of a set with a toilet seat around
his neck for the closer “We Were Shit”, although they were called back on for
an encore of Sham 69’s laddish drinking song “Hurry Up Harry” by the crowd.
By
now we’d been joined by Rich’s friend Nicky, another old Level 3 face, although
I bailed out of the venue when main support Borrowed Time launched into their
set. Much more proficient sounding than the openers, but I’m not a fan of their
more generic leather-and-studs UK82-inspired politico-punk noise, so I took a
seat to rest my knee and then phoned my brother, popping back in for their last
knockings.
Quite
a busy one, this, so we kept a watching brief by the bar, house left,
anticipating a boisterous moshpit which would be a little more than my knee
could currently handle. Not far wrong, as it turned out, as Henry Cluney led
the now 3-piece XSLF on at 10.30, rampaging straight into the classic “Suspect
Device” and immediately projecting his tough Northern Irish brogue much better
than beforehand. Thence followed a set of classic SLF first 2 albums only
material, enthusiastically if a little haphazardly delivered by Cluney and his
mob (the ex-Defects drummer in particular more than a little all over the
place, seemingly changing speed on a whim and regularly out of time with his
colleagues), but equally enthusiastically received and sung along with by this
Friday night Vic crowd. An early “Gotta Getaway” was incendiary; the mid-set
“Alternative Ulster” savage and bilious (Cluney deadpanning, “I wrote this one
on the way from the hotel tonight!”) and “Nobody’s Hero” was a careering, fist-pumping
manifesto and the best – and best sounding – number on show tonight. The band
hauled a quartet of backing singers up from the crowd for “Barbed Wire Love”,
Rich and myself responding with a mid-song waltz (!), and Borrowed Time’s Rob
did a fine job actually as guest vocalist for a venomous “Fly The Flag”. A
lengthy, dubby and slightly uneven “Johnny Was” closed out the set, although
Cluney, a little breathless by now, commented they couldn’t be bothered to go
offstage (a bit of a theme these days at gigs!), so ploughed through a timely
if shambolic “White Christmas” and a fine, tight “Tin Soldiers” to round off an
hour-ish set, after which I left Rich to it and headed off. So, still some way
short of Jake’s mob, but Cluney and co. were overall better than before, and
despite a few haphazard moments, gave this fabled material a good old
roughhousing and in doing so, delivered a fine and welcome, if unexpected and last-minute, evening’s singalong punk rock.
Slainte, chaps!
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