Chris Winter relives his schooldays with an evening at the Institute.
On the (delayed – more about that later) train into town on Saturday night there were a load of twentysomethings wearing what looked like school uniform. That was appropriate because tonight’s star attraction the Undertones were breaking just as I was getting rid of such clothing and trading it in for something a bit cooler.
Many years later the Undertones are still doing what they’ve always done – short, snappy tunes about the themes of the day. That’s to say, their day and any day. While their mainland contemporaries sang about police harassment and living in dangerous times, the lads from Derry were living every day in just those situation. T
hey and others on the Northern Ireland punk scene had every reason to be angry but Fergal and co stuck to the things that really mattered – songs about chocolate and girls. They didn’t exactly look the part either, but punk was about nothing if not originality and with everyone else going down the spiky hair and black leather jacket route, snorkel parkas and flared jeans meant that the boys were always going to stand out from the crowd.
But what made the Undertones so memorable were those songs, two minute anthems with lyrics that could have come from the pages of Smash Hits (ask your parents) but decades later are still fiery enough to enable the lads to hold their own in the company of the Sex Pistols and the Stranglers during the long, hot summer of ’26.
Marking their fiftieth anniversary they rolled up to the 02 Institute, which really should have been renamed Digbeth Civic for the occasion and proceeded to blow away an audience who should be old enough to know that you can’t sing, dance and jump around like that without feeling it next morning. Looking at the band on the setlist.fm website might take you feel you’re in for a gig of Springsteen proportions but 25 songs can be breezed through in little over an hour, with an encore to follow.
Jimmy Jimmy gets the show underway and from then on it’s a run-through of the Undertones’ greatest moments, leaning heavily on the classic eponymous album plus the EP that got them noticed in the first place.
Singer Paul McLoone makes enough references to how nice the venue is, and he’s not far wrong. It’s very swish these days, with bar prices to match. It’s a far from flawless set; I Know A Girl got “lost around the Bullring” according to McLoone and bassist Mickey Bradley says there’s a prize for anyone who can point out five mistakes. Bradley was talking quite a bit during the set which maybe was explained away when McLoone said he’d got a sore throat – hardy surprising given the punishment it receives.
“All help appreciated,” he said, before one of the few song introductions of the night, and it was the one that really does need no introduction. There were a couple of times when the set sagged a bit, because there’s only so many bouncy tunes you can enjoy in a row, but it was never long before another highlight.
Julie Ocean was a/the token slow song, there were a couple that were either new or unknown and towards the end McLoone turned the tables by filming the audience. He’s perhaps not the most charismatic frontman around but he’s got the voice to carry it off and eventually I realised that he looked a dead ringer for Solihull’s finest, Spizz.
The set closer Get Over You got the biggest reaction of the night and there was plenty of time for a four-song encore that included Here Comes the Summer, which beat off stiff competition to win the contest for fastest song of the night, and the grand finale, the epic My Perfect Cousin.
A delayed train and some ludicrously heavy security – I know it’s Digbeth Saturday Night, but the average age of the audience must have been over sixty so were metal detectors and full body searches really necessary? – meant missing out on Ranking jr’s version of the Beat, ironically while the Dave Wakeling franchise were performing at the Town Hall. If there was ever such a thing as a live school disco, this was it.
