This has
proved an unlikely vintage year for the Proclaimers. They appear
to have translated a novelty No 1 hit, the Peter Kay-sponsored
re-recording of I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) into something more lasting.
Twenty years into their careers, there seems to have been a kind
of mass acknowledgement that the Reid twins cut cheeringly unique
figures in the world of rock.
They
are a band pitched in the middle of the road, with an audience
to match. There are whole families here, and the mood is one of
infectious euphoria - momentarily replaced by puzzlement when the
duo introduce new-wave cult hero
Wreckless Eric, here to help perform
his 1978 single Whole Wide World.
Nevertheless, the Proclaimers' lyrics persistently engage with thorny
issues: the honours system and hip-hop's misogyny among them. Cap in
Hand is an angry plea for Scottish independence, which, surprisingly,
goes down a storm in Hampshire. Either there are a lot of ex-pats
present, or Southampton is a hitherto-unnoticed hotbed of Scottish
nationalist fervour. Or perhaps the crowd has just been carried along
by the music. There's something irresistibly strident and stirring
about the Proclaimers' sound, which may have as much to do with the
Reids' vocals as the songs: their voices have an indefinable quality
that somehow encourages people to sing along. Indeed, if you wanted to
pick holes, you could say that, in concert at least, they only really
do strident and stirring: even the tenderest love song sounds like
something you would hear before battle. Let's Get Married doesn't so
much pop the question as bellow it at you in a thick Scottish accent.
The effect is a bit off-putting, like someone proposing while whirling
a claymore inches from your face, but no one seems to notice. They are
too busy singing along.
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Yes,
what a crap idea - Wreckless Eric??!!? - he's got nothing to do with
it. But you've got to feel sorry for him so why not get him along
to fuck up the middle of the set.
And just exactly how do you devine puzzlement in this sort
of situation. It's completely subjective - the puzzlement could have
been all his own - for myself
I don't think there was any puzzlement in the audience, apart from
the normal level of incomprehension that you get when a couple of
thousand people get together in a hall. There are always
one or two fuckwits who don't really know what's going on, and while
old Petridish may not exactly fit the description of fuckwit,
perhaps he hadn't read whatever press releases he was given or listened
to their album so he didn't know that Whole Wide World is the latest
single off the album. He also got the original year of release wrong
(1977 not '78) which is disturbing in a music journalist, them supposedly
being the fount of all wisdom and all that. He'd plead that he can't
be expected to know everything, read everything, listen to everything...
It's not possible when you're busy writing articles complaining about
the volume of albums that come out in one week, or month or whatever.
(That article was great for me of course because it included
a photo of some of the product and Bungalow Hi was in there. So I
got on the front page of G2. I would have preferred a review though.)
Reading this review after having been at the event I'm in a state
of puzzlement myself as to why he bothered coming, or even
staying alive. What a fucking misery. Fats Domino could have done
Let's Get Married it's a rocker ballad -
it's supposed to be strident.
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