Published in Melody Maker, 13th February 1982
The Stranglers | Gig Review | Tiffany’s, Leeds 1982 | HEY, tonight I caught a glimpse of the future! The calendar said 1985 and Soft Cell, now augmented by a drummer and a guitarist, were playing to their own large cultish following. But a feeling of deja vu kept distracting my attention.
Then suddenly I remembered that Stranglers concert at the early end of 1982. Strictly speaking I was there to see if they really had somehow managed to return from the dead: if, in fact, that number one single “Golden Brown” did qualify them for a positive reassessment. But looking back I could see the link as clear as the sky.
The Stranglers had paved the way for the Soft Cell we came to laugh at in the mid-Eighties. From the moment Hugh Cornwell stormed on stage and his three mice jumped blindly into “Down In The Sewer”, I was struck with thoughts of natural progression.
After all, both camps had taken it upon themselves to use ridicule as a means to a lyrical end and they both thrived on what they saw as the seedier side of life. But then we fell out again. They just refused to grow up.
The Stranglers | Gig Review | Tiffany’s, Leeds 1982
They wouldn’t accept my arguments that they were playing in the right place but 15 years too late. Jet banged at his drums like he’d always done. Dave somehow managed to master that same keyboard tune once again and even grisly Jean Jacques managed to produce that distinctive old bass plod.
And guess what? They even threw their audience into a wild chant-along with songs like “Duchess” and “Tank”. But then that ability to coerce through a basic simply structured music had always been their main virtue.
Now I think about it maybe it was their desire to prove that they could be clever now and again, through songs like “Golden Brown”, that was at the root of their stagnation. And to think that we have sincerely believed that song to be the start of a new era. (Frank Worrall)
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