The Stranglers Birmingham Odeon 3rd Feb '83 - Never Say Goodbye - Baroque Bordello - Golden Brown

Hey! You can write 5000 characters in the description! So let’s fill the void. Cos no one reads this shit anyway. Yeah well. where to start, here goes. God knows I’ve nothing to say and plenty of time to say it and yes, it might be rubbish, but at least its unaided by AI, bereft of an agender, and my thoughts reside outside the latest fashion. So while stocks last….blah blah blah - only 400 used, urgh this ain't so easy. Listening back to this crowd recorded bootleg – which if it does one thing, it does plunge you right into the centre of the sweating, steaming, surging, oscillating, morass of humanity, that was the front of a Stranglers gig circa 83. “The crowd” back then, invariably, became one. Firstly, it was always impatient. Impatient for the band to “get on with it!” mainly. Like the band were somehow wasting time. Hugh with his orating. Burnel tuning up his bass with Dave’s assistance. The frequent “breakdowns” that occurred most nights in the pre digital days of live performance. Each incident invoked displeasure. The crowd, at the front at least, wanted it fast, fast, faster, and they wanted it unrelenting. Mostly they got it. Whilst the folks further to the rear of the auditorium, still housed in their comfy plush red velvet seats had come to hear & see “the new”. And what was new was: “Feline”. Somehow, I’d forgotten just how distinctly different The Feline tour was. The Stranglers had not just turned a single page; they’d flipped to a completely new chapter. They were on a new record label ok, but that didn’t mean much to us punters. What was new here in Brum was, firstly, gone was Watlzinblack as the much-loved walk-on intro. Being replaced with the new and decidedly daft, Aural Sculpture. JJ & Hugh were donning new acoustic guitars; Jet had some electronic bits added to his kit. And Dave had a whole panoply of new sounds to dispense. And so here I must cut the bullshit (I’ll never get to 5000 characters yak yak - and its uploaded now anyway). The reason I’ve chosen these 2 and a half tracks from the middle of the gig (unfortunately the tape runs out in the middle of Golden Brown) is this. Even though the quality of the tape isn’t great, you still get to glimpse with your pathetic little ears the majestic magnificence of Mr Dave Greenfield. If you were there at the time you can hopefully fill-in the inaccuracies of the recorded sound with your own remembrances. And you can inwardly say to yourself “ hey, you had the best of it”. Enjoy! And I never mentioned EuroBeat once.....