The Forum, London
17 December 2009
‘Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the Forum, not a creature was stirring apart from that seething, thronging mass of goths, punks, crusties and beardy CAMRA-men that only New Model Army seem to be able to unite into one celebratory whole. And they’ve been doing it for a while now. Next year sees their thirtieth anniversary tour… this year makes it two whole decades since I first became a fan, with a storming set at Reading Festival while touring Thunder And Consolation.
I have to admit, I’ve been living under a rock for a while and had somehow missed the release of the new album, though on the strength of tonight’s airing of most of it, it’s gonna be bloody good when I get round to hearing it. They’re certainly not resting on their laurels, even though they’ve earned them time and time again. After a new opener, they kick straight into “Get Me Out”, and from the amount of pyramids going up, it’s like the reign of the Pharaohs never ended.
And, fan though I am, it’s been a good couple of years since I’ve seen them, and it’s easy to forget that it’s only when you see a back catalogue presented like this that you realise just what an awesome chronicler of the last three decades of history Justin Sullivan has actually been, albeit a chronicler who looks every inch the pirate somehow drafted into the English Civil War. Let’s face it, Fukuyama (resisting the obvious joke) is never gonna match that. Neither is he going to actually not talk shit, but that’s beside the point. From twenty-five years ago, we get “The Charge” (about the Miners’ Strike)… later in the set we get “Lurhstaap”, whose warnings against blind belief in a post-Communist Utopia are still being proved right twenty years later.
Much is made of how New Model Army are one of the hardest-working bands in the country. So much, in fact, that it’s become something of a cliché, even though it’s one of those clichés that’s actually true. But that’s only part of it. Being hard-working counts for nothing if you’re shit at your job, and that’s something they are far from being guilty of. Twenty-nine years. Twelve years older than I was when I first saw them and was blown away. Twenty-nine years, and still every bit as energetic, as righteous, as angry, as fragile, as beautiful, as FUCKING ROCKING as they ever were.
Twenty-nine years, and still the best live band in the country.
-Deuteronemu 90210, shouting Hoy! from the top of a pyramid –
