Saturday, September 29, 2012

Another highlight of Incubate -- but not the least bit industrial - was Buzzcocks, who headlined the final night.

Several people mocked me - Mr Retromania, the caustic critic of reunion tours -- for visibly enjoying their greatest hits and not-quite-hits revue. But what can I say? A favourite band, I never did see them at the time, they're pretty fucking tight and energetic considering how haggard they look, and - strangely -- they still sound quite modern.

In fact one of their recent albums is called Modern, isn't it?

The gig was just great, but this here performance of "Harmony In My Head" was decidedly off, not cos of the rendition but on account of this bizarre interlude mid-song where Steve Diggle does a kind of...  rap. Not rap as in rapping, but this stagey, overwraught soapbox-declamatory routine in which he inveighs against... well, your guess is as good as mine. As "Harmony" ended, Pete Shelley could be heard muttering "what the hell was that?"


 
Diggle has also got into doing these disconcerting guitar-heroics, lots of axe-brandishing and pointing of his arm and finger into the crowd as if to say "didn't I blow your mind?" -- dramatics that are way out of proportion to the very basic powerchords being struck.

One of my favourite Buzzcocks tunes, performed a long time ago.




Singles Going Steady, as immaculate an artifact as anything pop's produced in the last 100 years?

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