Extreme Listening Mode!

by E Streeter

“I’m the Marmite artist” says Billy Bragg, “you either love me or hate me”. That’s a fairly typical comment from the Bard of Barking, at once self-deprecating, funny and shrewdly observed. Billy is sporting a new t-shirt this evening: Marmite logo on the front and tour dates on the back, in a vain attempt to get his favourite spread to sponsor him.

The Nottingham Rock City gig is the opener for the second leg of Bragg’s UK tour, interrupted by a few months in the USA where he picked up his support act, Billy Otis. The best way to describe American Billy is to think ZZ top refugee with a baseball cap and much better politics. Billy tried a bit too hard to put across an “I’m an American, please don’t hate me” message, obviously not briefed that a Billy Bragg audience is as progressive and politically switched on as it gets. Mr Bragg himself ventured into potentially risky territory with a couple of references to the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike in an area which didn’t support the NUM, but he, unlike the mining industry of Nottingham, got away with it.

Hardcore Bragg fans prefer things when it’s just Billy, his guitar and the crowd and this is one of those gigs which left you feeling uplifted and smiley. The set list I saw bore almost no relation to what BB played, but three highlights for me were ‘A Lover Sings’, ‘Greetings To the New Brunette’ and a highly contemporary ‘Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards’ which managed to reference Hugo Chavez, John Sergeant, the endurance of the Cuban Revolution, Strictly Come Dancing and parasitic bankers. Genius.

The verbal riffing ensures time whizzes by and that the songs are given context and emphasis. Clearly fired up by witnessing first hand Barack Obama’s epoch making victory (I was going to say ‘historic’ but if ever a word were overused it’s that), Billy reminds us again and again that positive changes are possible and that we, not he, can bring them about. The most interesting part of the evening was discovering that seeing The Clash play Victoria Park in the inaugural Rock Against Racism gig was the event that changed the course of BB’s life and took him on that 30 year plus journey, which led to Nottingham in November 2008. Bragg’s ‘Johnny Clash’ song got an airing as a result, an homage to Strummer and the can-do spirit which eventually coughed up one of England’s finest song writers. I mean, anyone who can write a line like ‘and if you haven’t noticed yet, I’m more impressionable when my cement is wet’ deserves to be front and centre when British songsmiths are ranked.

Three cover versions give a good idea of what makes Billy tick – ‘I Ain’ t Got No Home’, a 70 year old Woody Guthrie song about dispossession which could have been written the day before, a surprisingly strong ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ originally by the wonderful, wonderful Sam Cooke and a half-arsed ‘Jeanne’ by The Smiths. Eclectic doesn’t begin to describe it.

He slapped it into the BNP, George Bush, Tony Blair and the usual targets. He also stitched together a closing sequence of songs to bring even the most jaded leftie to life: ‘Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards’, ‘There Is Power In A Union’,  ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’, ‘I Have Faith’, and  – despite losing his voice two thirds of the way in  – gave us ‘A New England’ to send us home happy. Billy Bragg may well be a Marmite artist but seeing him this evening was as enjoyable as it was the first night I saw him play, a mere 21 years ago at a Labour Party Conference in Blackpool. Plus ca change……………..

Filed under: gigs Tagged: | Billy Bragg, billy bragg nottingham, bnp, Politics, politics in music, tony blair