The Skids
Robin 2
22nd June

You usually have a fair idea how busy a venue’s going to be well in advance, but I had no idea what to expect from this one. The Skids were one of those bands who slipped between a few stools. They weren’t a hardcore punk band, they weren’t massive record sellers back in the day nor have they become influentially fashionable in the style of, say, the Buzzcocks since the halcyon days of the greatest musical revolution. This fortieth anniversary tour wasn’t even a proper reunion as they’ve played a few one-off gigs over the past decade.

So, how much of a market is there for a band whose most lasting legacy could have been said to be the presence in their original ranks of the sadly-missed Stuart Adamson, whose death in 2001 deprived the world of a fully-fledged guitar hero? That and the memory of some very bad dancing from frontman Richard Jobson.

Quite a big market as it turned out, as you could see from a fair distance away, when even the overspill car park was full (punk rock, eh?) and both bars were doing a fair trade on a night that thankfully wasn’t as hot as it had been earlier in the week.

Opening the night were veterans of the 1979 mod revival the Chords, who performed a decent set to an appreciative crowd, closing with their top forty hit Maybe Tomorrow.

Then it was time for the reason for such a big turnout. From the first notes of set opener Animation we were reminded that the Skids are, were, will be, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody brilliant. The band are blistering, Jobson leaps around like a man possessed. They rip through a selection from the band’s back catalogue with no messing and with plenty of venom. Forty years haven’t changed their attitude, and as Jobson keeps reminding us, it hasn’t changed the world as much as he’d have liked either.

Jobson is one of the great forgotten frontmen; he may not possess the best voice but charisma, presence, call it what you will, he’s got it by the bucketful. The dancing might have been toned down over the years but he and guitarist Bruce Watson (as good a replacement for Adamson as you’ll ever get) are still putting on a double act to remember. The rest of the band – original bassist Bill Simpson and Mike Baillie who joined for third album The Absolute Game, plus Bruce’s son Jamie on guitar, provide a rythmn section that couldn’t have been any tighter if they’d played together for decades rather than a few months.

The hits were there – Working for the Yankee Dollar was a standout while The Saints Are Coming, known worldwide after the Green Day/U2 Hurricane Katrina fundrasier is given especial poignancy with a dedication to the Grenfell Tower firefighters. Early favourite Charles, a story of autonomy leading to unemployment, is another stand out as is Melancholy Soldiers, a song that shows the unique ability of the Skids to have the audience singing along joyously to the most serious of lyrics.

Memories of Wolverhampton Civic, abuse of Donald Trump, a loud and heartfelt tribute to Adamson at the start of Scared to Dance. This was a night when past music was brought into focus by subsequent happenings.

The Olympian reminded me of buying Smash Hits for the red flexidisc (ask your parents) while setcloser Into the Valley was the only song that came without a lengthy introduction. It didn’t need one as that epic bass intro set the room off and, unfortunately, brought the cameraphones out. The soaring guitar work, the choruses, and yes, the dancing. We were all, as we’d been promised from the off, sixteen again

Jobson led the crowd in a few more choruses as the rest of the band briefly left the stage then into Charade and “the shittest song we ever wrote” which nevertheless had been shouted for from the off, or at least until mayhem and violence had been threatened from the stage. TV Stars, as ever updated to include scathing references to a few leading politicians.