Tonight I witnessed the same members, Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn, take to Student’s Union in Manchester in exactly the same way they always have. Sleafords, taking everything by storm and sucking everyone inside the fierce cyclone in a hope to eliminate the ennui from the everyday parade of catwalks on the cobblestones with blues scales under their fingernails and a promotional Fred Perry wreath as the halo that crowns all talentless bastards.
There is an entrancing torrent of visual stimuli intensifying every angle, from which the rawness and realism of the entire thing isn’t detracted the stampede of the sound system’s booing acoustics, shaking the brain into a bowl of bolts and a small puddle of gooey noodles.Įssentially a manifestation able to be identified as the duo’s professional progression magnifies their ideas and desires to be what they always wanted to become…the rapture of the city still reciprocal of the Mods as they enter and exit and leave a hole in the wake of each intense show. Yet, although improved and with more going on, the impact of the show with all the added special effects doesn’t decline. Translucent latex abattoir curtains conceal a simple bank of bright lights that burst into life to encourage punk to turn into an invasion of ravers and rascals, hipsters and happy death men of the city in a frantic, friendly frenzy, where all walks of life congregate and the concrete jungle beyond the doors is one of wire vines and sirens to sedate its public. An eviscerating implementation of contextopop as smart and as stylish and as unequivocally now as ever (Bob Vylan, Billy Nomates, Benefits all fit the bill, some do not for reasons more complex than a) you’re not working-class, b) on the dole, c) mentally unwell d)don’t listen to the Fall or Joy Division). That is: social commentary, bass and drums as the main, instrumental elements, post-whatever as acceptable genre demarcations but nicely, naturally falls under the influence of pop, humble but with a history of something that can justify an inclusion of social comment with a poetic, psychotic edge on class, on culture, on climate change, on the state of mind as symptomatic of the doldrums that surround the self, or the culling of the modern masses without sounding like an insipid, ignominious lout with a Fall bootleg and a Satre’s Age of Reason stuffed into their overcoat pockets.
Tonight is less about a duo with their mate supporting, it’s a showcase of “Contextopop”. I’ve seen Sleaford Mods a few times, so I’ve had the luxury of experiencing their expansion, of witnessing their trajectory from small slabs of stage to much larger stages first-hand. Ryan Walker was at their Manchester show.
I no longer have an interest in guitars*.Įmbarking on their first full-length UK tour since Covid crippled the industry, a visually stunning and musically still muscular Sleaford Mods remain the predominant exponents of less is more…and then some.