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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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SQUEEZE
Hammersmith
Apollo, London
December 4th 2007
Given
the degree of antipathy that has existed between
them in the past it seems remarkable that Glen
Tilbrook and Chris
Difford ever managed to write any songs together,
let alone produce so many fantastic and enduring
pop hits. As they powered Squeeze
through twenty-one years (with a three-year break
in 1985) of eighteen UK Top Fifty hit singles,
twelve studio albums and numerous tours around
the world their relationship was frequently on
the rocks: “We spent at least twenty years
not communicating about anything” said the
wordsmith of the pair Difford, in a recent interview.
“We fell out somewhere between the first
and second album” confirmed guitarist, singer,
composer and sometime studio Stalinist Tilbrook
– “I was” he added, “an
arsey git”. |
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| Well
arsey or not, Tilbrook and Gifford have returned
to the stage with almost-original bassist John Bentley,
drummer Simon Hanson and keyboard player Stephen
Large (both from Tilbrook’s band the Fluffers)
for a US tour, a few festivals, and a string of
gigs across the UK. And of course there’s
a new album – well, a new ‘best of’
album, The Essential Squeeze, and a live album,
Five Live, recorded in the United States earlier
in the year. |
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Oh
yes, and for a mere ten quids there’s a tour
programme, which almost everyone seems to have a
copy of in this very full Hammersmith Apollo. And
such has been the demand for seats that this is
now the first of two nights in the capital. And
the Squeeze fans are out in full – moving
backwards and forwards to and from the bar like
shifty market traders passing in the night. As the
police cars speed past outside round the Broadway
on their way to Heathrow (I’m sure they’re
doing ninety), gangs of geezers and likely lads,
swearing like how’s your father, Ted Baker
shirts and pints of lager, pose at the bar –
and it is funny, isn’t it Serge, how their
missus always looks the bleeding same? |
| Actually
this turns out to be less of a concert and more
of an assault course as the band take the stage
and launch a barrage of hits at a mostly supplicant
audience. Most might choose to leave gold-standard
songs like ‘Take me I’m yours’
and the wonderful ‘Up the junction’
to the end of the set – but here they start
the evening off and introduce an almost relentless
set of hit after hit. Did they really play so many?
Support act, a rather disappointing King Creosote
had been loud and poorly mixed; now the mix is better
but the volume is still high. Tilbrook works like
a Trojan – he has the voice of an angel and
the energy of a red setter – he can also play
the lead guitar with greater accomplishment than
I might have imagined. Co-conspirator Difford, with
a hopelessly low-key and slightly flat voice shimmies
across the stage in the background, only occasionally
moving to the front. Tilbrook is of course the voice
of Squeeze – but when it’s combined
with Difford (‘Cool for cats’) the effect
is totally , well…Squeeze.
And hit after hit like wave after wave they come
– the lager-fuelled audience in ever greater
stages of out-of-body excess (and believe me that’s
a lot of body to be out of); revelling in South
London tributes such as ‘In Quintessence’
(can they really all have come from Deptford?). |
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|
And I should add there are so many songs, I ran
out of pages in my little black book, but as for
the set list, well if you think they might have
played it, then they probably did. I do seem to
recall, as the bodies were being carried out on
stretchers suffering from a surfeit of hits (better
than lampreys I suppose), that they finished with
‘Goodbye girl’, ‘Hourglass’,
‘Pulling Mussels (from a shell)’ and
‘Cool for cats’. Blimey. And as if we
hadn’t had enough, they strode back on the
stage, thanked us ‘for coming out’ (did
we?) and finished for the second time with ‘Tempted’
and ‘Black coffee in bed’ which had
everyone singing along like a right old London knees-up.
Great songs played with surprising verve, energy
and enthusiasm. And each one as fresh and exciting
as a Christmas gift plucked from a fireside stocking
– hang on – is it really that time of
year again …? - Nick Morgan (concert photograph
by Kate) |
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