Brighton Centre 20th May 1978 - The Reviews

 Something of a rarity here, two very positive and complimentary reviews of a Stranglers gig, not only from Record Mirror, but also from the pages of the New Musical Express. It is a real shame that this one does not appear to be out there in the bootleg fossil record!

I take Mark Ellen's point about the venue. My first gigs were nearly all at the Brighton Centre (including The Stranglers) and it is the most awful, cavernous, soulless box of a venue.... but given the chance in 1978 I would have made the effort... but on a Saturday night in 1978 I would have been watching Basil Brush and waiting on 'The Generation Game'!

New Musical Express 27th May 1978

Stranglers step up the pace.

The Stranglers
BRIGHTON CENTRE

The last time I saw The Stranglers was at the Roundhouse in November. I was left with two impressions.

Firstly, they had subverted the performer/audience balance to the extent that it was the audience who were performing, the band merely acting as a catalyst.

And secondly, as I dragged out a friend with a broken ankle, that I was lucky to be alive.

They’d reached a stage where, apart from inciting more hysteria by deriding the crowd’s response, they didn’t have to work for an ecstatic reception.

The Stranglers now return to the circuit in a very different league, and it’s certainly hard to imagine playing a venue more soul-destroying than that clinical bunch of breeze-blocks, the Brighton Centre.

Everything was against them. There was nowhere near a 5,000 capacity crowd, no bar (imagine it!), and a sound mix that was knotting itself into sonic spaghetti and bouncing off the walls.

Coupled with this, any reaction from the audience was so deadened by the surroundings that the band probably thought they had the place to themselves.

After about three numbers, the distinctive Stranglers sound finally broke through.

The ceaseless twanging of Burnel’s bass and the caustic rasp of Cornwell’s guitar chords, offset by Dave Greenfield’s fluid, almost delicate keyboard fills, seemed more than usually aggressive, as if honed on a cheese-grater.

A more comprehensive exposure of the band’s material I couldn’t have wished for. Not only did they play almost every track off the “Rattus” album (“Sometimes” and “Hanging Around” being quite outstanding), but also a fair few from “No More Heroes”, before launching into the realms of the new LP “Black & White”.

Supposedly an album representing extremes, their horizons both musical and lyrical, are considerably broadened.

This was the first time that I’ve heard any of the material, and the only time I’ve seen The Stranglers use lighting to any real effect.

The songs were punctuated by ranks of white arc-lamps and air-raid spotlights, slightly lost in the vast cubic void of the Centre, but still suggesting something of the starkness of the lyrics.

Easiest to accept were “Sweden (All Quiet On The Eastern Front)”, “Do You Wanna” and “Death And Night And Blood (Yukio)”, because they conformed fairly closely to the standard Stranglers format of an incessant, balanced barrage of sound, swayed by keyboard and guitar breaks.

“Outside Tokyo” was radically different. Introduced by Cornwell’s precept. “Look at your watches and go to sleep”, it was a loping ans dischordant dirge, conspicuous by being so out of character with everything else.

“In The Shadows” was not a pleasant noise by any means. It consisted of echoed moans against a listless backing that was more like a reject sound-track from a Hammer movie, and wrecked the continuity of the set.

As for “Nice ‘n’ Sleazy”, any remaining doubts as to whether The Stranglers are macho-merchants, or as to whether they give a nubile’s butt that anyone cares, were swiftly dispersed by the appearance of a stripper. Within seconds she had whipped off the bulk of her mail-order lingerie, and embarked on a routine that would curdle milk.

The mammoth one and three-quarter hour set finally closed to the more familiar tune of “No More Heroes”, “Something Better Change” and “Five Minutes”.

If The Stranglers proved one thing it was that, although still trading on the sound they first hit on two years ago, they’ve got themselves to this level by producing enough musical variation within those limits.

They’re also back to working for a response.

The gig gave the impression they were starting all over again, but on a much larger scale – getting the audience to accept new material, cranking them up to react to it, and playing with all their old energy and determination.

Mark Ellen.

Record Mirror 27th May 1978

THE STRANGLERS/ TANZ DER YOUTH
Brighton Centre

OPENING UP for Stranglers is never an easy task and on Saturday night at the Brighton Centre we were faced with Brian James's new outfit Tanz Der Youth, playing their first ever gig. There were several problems especially with the Stranglers biased audience, who didn't know what to expect and had to put up with a fairly rough sound system. Nevertheless, Tanz Der Youth were good, in fact I thought they were very good.

They played eight numbers with Brian on vocals / guitar alongside Tony Moor on keyboards/synthesiser, bassist Andy Colquhoun and ex-Hawkwind drummer Alan Powell. Brian tended to stick to rhythm guitar leaving the bulk of the solo work to Tony Moor's synthesiser although there were some fine guitar/synthesizer breaks.

The best numbers were 'Why I Die', 'I'm Sorry, I'm Sorry', introduced as a "cute little pop song", and the excellent 'Blue Lights Flashing'. Also included from the Damned days were 'New Rose' and a slowed down version of 'Neat, Neat, Neat'. In which you could actually hear the 't' s.

As for the Stranglers, this was the most complete performance I have seen them give, not only in presentation, effort and technique, but also in material, consisting of almost every number on their three albums. On stage for the best part of two hours, they commenced with a run through of a dozen songs from 'Rattus' ,and 'No More Heroes'.

Two spotlights were then beamed towards the audience as the 'Black and White' section began. Of the newer material, 'Death and Night and Blood'. 'Sweden' and 'Nice 'n' Sleazy' (with the accompaniment of a topless dancer wearing nothing else but a suspender belt and a knowledgeable smile) came over particularly well. However, it’s hard to single out individual numbers from a practically faultless set.

The climax of the evening came as the band played through ‘Grip’, ‘Something Better Change’, ‘No More Heroes’, ‘Five Minutes’ and ‘Sewer’, during which Jean Jacques Burnel leapt off the stage into the photographer’s pit to the delight of the south coast crowd.

STEVE GETT.