Published in Sounds, 16th August 1980
UK Subs | Gig Review | Music Machine, London 1980 | THERE’S A tendency for the more lard-headed new hippies amongst us to paint everyone who refuses to worship at the altar of their turgid music-to-wear-long-macs-to as Tom and Dick Alf Garnett types with a reactionary attachment to dead music.
Now is not the time for another row about the greyness and staggering unoriginality of these so-called new pioneers, but one thing that really bugs me about their hip elitist attitudes is their complete inability to appreciate things on different levels.
How come you’re not ‘allowed’ to appreciate the mature pop appeal of The Jam, Dexys and the Pretenders, or the simplistic bacchanalia of Splodge and Bad Manners as well as the more musically adventurous/serious explorations of say The Skids, Killing Joke, The Ruts and Wasted Youth?
UK Subs | Gig Review | Music Machine, London 1980
It’s crazy to judge every group by one rigid (and very arbitrary) set of attitudes. Bands like the UK Subs are condemned by these dogmatists for not ‘progressing’ into Doors retreads and even more pathetically for having signed to major record labels.
They seem to forget that not only did ‘Anarchy’ and ‘White Riot’ never come out on Rough Trade, but also political anarchy was only ever just one strand of new wave thought.
Within today’s confused but kicking punk orbit the Subs exist on a level as different from Crass and Discharge as it is from the Rejects and the 4-Skins.
They’ve earned their pride of pace in the affections of the spikey urchin nation on the basis of their mastery of, and I cop a cliché, pure pogomatic power and it’s on that level that I’ve always judged them.
Which brings us to tonight’s first ‘proper’ unveiling of the band’s new line-up with ex-User Alvin Gibbs and ex-Cyanider Steve Roberts replacing Paul Slack and Pete Davies on bass and drums respectively and the big question mark in the back of my ball-point was had they lost any of that power?
Any such doubts evaporated like spit on a blast furnace from the minute Nicky Garrett powered into the opening chords of ‘Emotional Blackmail‘, which points out the direction the new Subs are heading with its great slabs of steel-hard guitar coupled to yell-a-billy lyrics over pounding rhythm work.
UK Subs | Gig Review | Music Machine, London 1980
Slack and Davies weren’t exactly seven-stone weaklings as a rhythm section, but the new boys make ’em sound like the Nolan Sisters’ backing musos, Roberts in particular dealing out fierce and totally compatible power-drumming.
But the real test of the night was the new material and the band, who could have so easily copped out and made it with a cozy greatest hits re-run, plunged right into the deep end with a tasty trio of untried treats.
“We’re into destroying tonight,” grinned Charlie strapping on a guitar and joining Nicky on the muscly intro riff of ‘You Don’t Belong’ (a bit reminiscent of the ‘Batman’ theme beefed up), a neat rampaging number with a rabbit punch of a chorus.
This was followed by the even faster ‘Confrontation Street‘ (what next boys, ‘Cross Words Motel’?) and the trio was rounded off with the more mid-paced ‘New Order‘ with its hefty chorus-chant and Nicky leaping about like he’s got a ferret down his y-fronts while Chas stood there grinning hugely with pleasure.
Fall Of The Empire
The rest of the set maintained the brain-blistering quality, mixing old classics with the best of the latest stuff and yet another surprisingly fine newie, ‘Fall Of The Empire‘.
It was supercharged stuff all the way with the newer material progressing neatly, building on the old Subs power while retaining their Sid Yobbo chorus chant appeal.
By the end of the evening there was less chance of them not getting a couple of encores than there is of mistaking Honey Bane for Twiggy on a dark night. (Garry Bushell)
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