1,309 XSLF, Borrowed Time, The Deckchairs, Swindon The Victoria, Friday 15th December 2023

 

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!

889 XSLF, Charred Hearts, Swindon Basement 73, Saturday 28 September 2013

Squeezed in an unexpected gig tonight as it was local, and a variation on my usual “Mad March to Bristol !” I normally pop down the M4 each March to catch original punk combo Stiff Little Fingers on their annual Academy tour, however former original guitarist Henry Cluney, widely credited as the man who introduced punk rock to an Ulster covers band called Highway Star, thus prompting their metamorphosis into SLF, has formed a breakaway version of the band trading under the XSLF banner and also featuring early line-up drummer Jim Reilly. And they’re playing a gig in my old 80’s/90’s weekend haunt Level 3, sorry Basement 73 as it’s now billed. This should be an interesting one, to contrast this lot with “the real thing” with whom I’m so familiar thanks to their annual go-around, and also to see how SLF numbers stack up without the gravelly rasp of vocalist Jake Burns. Here goes…

Drove into town after the kids went to bed, meeting up with The Big Man and Ady outside the Rolleston and catching up awhile. Chatted upstairs through the opening act downstairs, but t’was then getting a little chilly so I went down to this familiar old venue (although oddly enough for the first time under its’ new incarnation!) to catch main support, 80’s reformed punk act Charred Hearts. Local boys, this lot, with vocalist Dermot Fuller also having had a hand in organising this gig, a memorial event for a friend, they understandably played with bucketfuls of passion and commitment, sweeping their ramalama terrace chant street punk along with undiluted intensity and conviction. Fuller was fulsome in his praise for the impressive turnout of old punk rockers (“I’m so proud of all you fuckers”), also remarking, tongue in cheek, after one energetic number, “the adrenaline’s starting to kick in – I tell you, when you’re pushing 40 like us lot…!” I also appreciated him wandering offstage during a middle eight, simply to walk through the venue and shake hands with a few punters and friends. Style, sir. Noisy and ramshackle, but sincere and impressive stuff from a band who clearly wear their (charred) hearts on their sleeves.

By now Ady and The Big Man had joined us at the bar, where we awaited XSLF’s entrance at 10.30. Dermot Fuller announced the 3-piece onstage, with Cluney, a short black-clad bloke who’d clearly been sharing the same diet as his similarly expanding former bandmate Burns, kicking off with “At The Edge”. However, whereas SLF’s rendition is normally exciting and adrenaline-fuelled, this seemed slow, sluggish and haphazardly played, with Cluney, a quieter, more understated, nuanced and heavily Irish accented vocalist, suffering in comparison to Burns’ considerably more strident tones. A couple of less familiar early numbers later, I was formulating the view that this was not a patch on the real thing, a disappointing, almost pub-circuit standard imitation. Then…

“Tin Soldiers” changed all that. “If they get this one wrong, we might as well all go home…” I remarked to The Big Man. Thankfully, they didn’t, kicking up the conviction level a few hundred notches with an impressive rendition of SLF’s best number. “Gotta Getaway” followed, one rarely trotted out by Burns’ mob, so I got up for a pogo and an arms aloft, fists punching the air punk rock singalong. The usual SLF faves shone after that, with Cluney ultimately playing with a sense of ownership and entitlement; an anthemic “Fly The Flag”, a shambolic “Alternative Ulster” which nevertheless got the dancefloor filled with a rampaging mosh, a swayalong “Barbed Wire Love”, and final encore “Roots Radicals, Rockers and Reggae”, to end on a real high.

Sure, there were bum notes and ragged edges aplenty, particularly from the short-notice replacement bassman, and musically they didn’t compare favourably to the “real” SLF. But after a dreadful start, this was better than I’d initially feared, with Cluney another old punk growing old disgracefully, revisiting his roots and rediscovering his mojo in the process. And they were playing in a small sweaty club in Swindon on a Saturday night, for a good cause. So fair play to ‘em. A damn fine evening’s punk rock!