Issue 58 / August 2015

28
Bido Lito! August 2015 Reviews
Dead Kennedys (Keith Ainsworth / arkimages.co.uk)
show, snotty, with neck veins full apop, the
kind that discards its sweaty t-shirt and enters
the crowd elbows-first. For the record: only
Ron “Skip” Greer (Vocals) descends from the
stage tonight, and he remains fully clothed.
The crowd do not. Greer’s been the voice of
Dead Kennedys since 2008, their longestlasting
vocalist since Jello Biafra, the thinkingman’s
pogo stick, left in 2001. He wisely avoids
imitating his predecessor’s vibrato-heavy sneer
before a crowd which, despite singing along to
Kill The Poor and Nazi Punks Fuck Off, contain
elements that would probably drag him into
– under – their midst and disperse to leave
nothing behind.
In fact, only half of tonight’s line-up released
Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables in 1981. DH
Peligro has other commitments, his drum stool
filled by Steve “Boomstick” Wilson (they all have
names like this), leaving East Bay Ray (Guitar)
and Klaus Flouride (Bass). They look like Vic
and Bob these days, respectively. Yet a shrewd
understanding of punk still shines through
the indignation, however cynically they do it:
as they drape the chorus of Taylor Swift’s Shake
It Off over Bleed For Me, a diminutive skinhead
shoves his way past me, en route from the pit
to the back of the room, muttering, “It’s shite…
Fucking disgrace”.
Despite left-wing politics, and acerbic songs
that survived the Reagan-era (California Über
Alles, Chemical Warfare, Holiday In Cambodia)
with an urgency that doesn’t just stem from
machinegun tempi and ever-decreasing breaks
between, I suspect tonight’s crowd are after a
more Pavlovian experience: guaranteed sweat
and rage irrespective of everyday life (though
some of that anger is surely pent-up over crap
pay or disenfranchisement). An older gentleman
in a hoodie squeezes through with two pints
as I stand outside the moshpit. He stops, gets
tousled by exiles from the pit and again on
their re-entry. His beer goes over him, over me,
in the air, on the floor. Not a drop enters his
rictus grin, and I doubt if he ever intended it
to. He’s having the time of his (long) life. Dead
Kennedys are superb showmen, ticking every
box for a punk rock gig – but it’s ultimately a
sideshow with no main event.
Stuart Miles O’Hara / @ohasm1
MAVIS STAPLES
Lizzie Nunnery and Vidar Norheim
Philharmonic Hall
“We have an aisle seat at the very back or
middle row near the front.” “I’ll take the seat
at the back so I can dance in the aisle without
getting in anyone’s way.” The man at the box
office laughs… Babe, I ain’t joking, we’re talking
about MAVIS STAPLES here. Alarmingly fresh
for her 75 years and from the previous day’s
Glastonbury performance, Ms Staples is led
onto the stage at the Philharmonic where her
band and backing vocalists wait. She’s a five
foot bundle of sass, sugar and warmth with
a voice deep as a cannonball moan. She tells
the sea of greying heads before her in her
Southern-tinged Chicago accent that tonight
she’ll be taking us on a journey, and breaks
out into If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me).
We’re ready, Mavis. Though it’s been decades
since her family band The Staple Singers
soundtracked the Civil Rights Movement, the
evening seems to have protest woven through
it as she breaks into her second song, a cover of
Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth.
Earlier, folk duo LIZZIE NUNNERY AND VIDAR
NORHEIM opened the show, captivating
the audience with their mixture of acerbic
austerity-hating poetry and beautiful sea
shanty-like choruses. Tales of Liverpool past
and present percolate through England Loves
A Poor Boy and Company Of Ghosts, using
only percussion, guitar and vocals. These
aren’t rose-tinted accounts; rather, cutting
critiques on patriotism and colonialism, and
a nuanced re-imagination of the city which
juxtaposes old with new. England Loves A Poor
Boy narrates the story of Old Man Trouble, a
homeless figure who died in Liverpool after
fighting for the Empire in WWI on the broken
promise of returning to his native Caribbean,
while Company Of Ghosts eloquently reminds
us of the seafaring past and prospering present
of Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter. Poverty
Knocks is the highlight of the set, with the
audience singing along to Nunnery’s warning
of Thatcherite policy “watch out the boat is a
rockin’”. Witnessing a woman returning to the