So the plan had been to take a night off, and go and see one of my all-time favourite bands as a paying punter, drink some beer and enjoy not having to think about writing a review. But it’s a compulsion, and in a way, writing a review for posterity makes sense. I go to a lot of gigs, and sometimes, further down the line, the details can get lost. So I went as a paying punter, drank beer and got myself tightly pressed against the barrier down the front and... here we are.
Like most kids growing up in the 80s (I was born in 1975), I first heard of the Furs through the film tie-in single release of ‘Pretty in Pink’. It wasn’t until later that I heard the original version on the radio and was struck by how much better that droning sax and yawning guitar line was, not to mention the rasping vocals, and immediately picked up a copy of ‘Talk Talk Talk’ from my local second-hand record shop for about £3.50. That piece of vinyl stayed on my turntable for weeks, and I rushed to pick up the rest of their back catalogue too.
Yet around 20 years on, I still hadn’t seen the Furs play, so their playing in the 500-capacity Duchess, just ten minutes from my house was definitely something to get excited about. Arriving at The Duchess in good time like a fanboy (ok, I expected it would be busy, being the main day of the city-wide DV8 goth / alternative festival) the wait was almost over.
Berlin Black (who seem to have strategically dropped the ‘and the Shades of Grey’ suffix that featured on the original bill – can’t imagine why) treated the already substantial gathering of early birds (they may be nighthawks, but these goths are committed and will crawl out of the woodwork in daylight for the right band and some booze) to a tight set of compelling and deftly-executed Bauhaus-influenced New Wave art rock.
Then there was Siiii from Sheffield. I’d spotted a guy in the pub up the road in one of their T-Shirts beforehand, and sure enough he was down the front, but he found himself with plenty of space as the audience rapidly diminished as the set progressed. Why? Because they sucked. The singer’s demeanour was less than endearing, as he chuntered bitterly about the lack of soundcheck and came across like an overbearing pedantic pub bore the rest of the time. Ironically, the musicians themselves sounded really good, as did the compositions in themselves, but the vocals were, to be blunt, fucking dreadful and an hour-long soundcheck wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Still, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry more than compensated. They didn’t whinge, but instead strolled onstage, plugged in and battered their way into ‘Beating My Head’. It marked the beginning of a set that consisted predominantly of early material, augmented with half an album’s worth of new material, all of which is of a comparable quality. Chris Reed’s vocals drone around the solar plexus as the Lorries – driven by the excellent metronomic powerhouse percussion of drummer Mark Chillington – batter forcefully through vintage classics including ‘Talk About the Weather’, ‘Hand on Heart’, ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Monkeys on Juice’. Upping the tempo, they squeeze in three more songs than on the set-list, culminating in a full-force rendition of one of my all-time favourites of theirs, ‘Hold Yourself Down’.
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After what felt like an eternity of soundchecking, during which we were treated to almost the entirety of The Cure’s singles output, the Butler brothers bounded on stage and launched into an energetic performance of ‘Into You Like a Train’, prefacing a set that included half of that magnificent second album. To describe the reception as warm would be an understatement and a half.
They were in fine form, lively, warm and clearly enjoying themselves. There’s just so much to like. Richard Butler’s such a charismatic front man, and he’s in fine voice, too. The distinctive rasp hasn’t changed a bit, and he jives and grooves his way through the set, touching the outstretched hands of the immensely jubilant front rows, and pogos tirelessly between songs. He smiles a lot, too, and it’s sincere. Tim Butler, meanwhile, sings along with every line and looms forward from the front of the stage, pointing the neck of his bass over the crowd and lapping up the adulation. Mars Williams lays licks and grooves all over the place with his exuberant sax playing, and the overall vibe is of a band who are doing it for the music rather than the money.
Tossing away ‘Pretty in Pink’ early on, they proved the immense depth of their back-catalogue as they chucked in a string of hits including ‘Heartbeat’, ‘Heaven’ and ‘Love My Way’, alongside ‘Mr Jones’, ‘No Tears’, ‘It Goes On’, as well as ‘Imitation of Christ’ and culminating in a colossal bass-thumping rendition of ‘India’.
They may have shunned ‘Book of Days’ and ‘World Outside’ in their entirety, but it’s abundantly clear they know what their best songs are as they kick out ‘Only You and I’, ‘My Time’ and ‘Highwire Days’. I couldn’t have picked a better set for personal favourites, bar perhaps the omission of ‘All of This and Nothing’, and judging by the rapturous reaction from a fair few fellow crowd members, I wasn’t the only one to think so.
They bound back onstage having barely left, and with the start of the club night already overdue, only manage to squeeze one of the three songs on the setlist in for the encore – but it’s a high-energy performance of ‘Forever Now’. It may be 30 years old, but it sounds fresh and the lyrics ‘President Gas is tapdancing for the banker he’s a thief / he isn’t very honest / but he’s obvious at least’ couldn’t be more contemporary. Butler was always a superb lyricist, though, combining the straightforward and the astutely observed, along with some keen wordplay and neatly-crafted imagery. We wish it could stay forever now, but with that last blast, they cap off a truly excellent performance.
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