Any gig is partly defined by its audience. Brighton audiences, particularly Brighton Dome audiences, are usually a lively bunch but tonight’s crowd, at least until beyond halfway through, are still as dummies in their seats, quiet as mice. Looking around is uncanny, like observing a theatre watching a Strindberg play or some such. True, they’re mostly in their fifties but that’s a poor excuse. The last time I saw the Dome this dead was when Ultravox played a couple of years back. Matters weren’t, perhaps, helped by the production company’s disgraceful insistence that the bar – which is outside the performance hall – be closed while the band are on. That was a truly miserable decision.
Nevertheless, with all that said, Squeeze still pulled the rabbit out of the hat. They may have been met with a wall of silence when they tried to start an audience sing-along to “Labelled With Love” and it may have taken all their powers of persuasion to get the majority of the crowd standing and – shocking stuff – even jigging about, but they got there in the end. They are, after all, a band on a bit of a roll, what with a recent BBC Four documentary celebrating their career and a new album due in 2013.
They are one of those bands where it’s easy to forget how many songs you actually know
The documentary reminded what a convoluted journey the core duo of lyricist Chris Difford and guitarist Glenn Tilbrook have been on, blooming from the same early Seventies south London scene that produced Dire Straits but, unlike that band, proving to have enough pith and energy for punk. Always more poetic and timeless than hyped and thrashy, they grew into a reliably lyrical perennial, maintaining a career, on and off through five decades, the current incarnation – containing their early Eighties bassist John Bentley - on the go since 2007.
They arrive on stage to a projected cartoon Bruce Forsyth introducing each band member. Difford is in a black suit and spotty tie and Tilbrook, clean-shaved unlike his recent Catweasle-at-Hogwarts look (pictured below), clad in a shiny purple suit and fetching lime green shoes. They’re a proper band with drummer Simon Hanson and keyboardist Stephen Large (who looks like an escapee from Sparks) very much involved in every performance twist and turn. They kick off with “Bang Bang” and “Annie Get Your Gun” and before long Tilbrook has a mini-keyboard on a trolley that looks like a wizard’s table. He hams it up but the audience is unmoved. New song "Tommy", about a London lowlife, is performed a capella by the whole band with a string accompaniment projected onscreen behind them, but things really move up a pace – of course - when the acoustic section dives into old hits such as a driving, almost Cajun take on the lovely “Take Me I’m Yours” wherein Large attacks an accordion with showy gusto.
Tilbrook’s voice is a high, light instrument but Difford’s is a deep, country-style baritone which he uses to great effect on a wonderful number I wasn’t familiar with, “Cowboys Are My Weakness” (which turns out to come from his 2007 solo album I Didn’t Get Where I Am). A light show plays on them throughout, over what appears to be sections of metal fence floating above them, and their musical diversity is further showcased on the premium Eighties funk of lesser known hit “Hourglass”.
They’re one of those bands where it’s easy to forget how many songs you actually know but as they streak punkily through “Tempted”, “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)” and the exquisite kitchen sink drama “Up The Junction”, you’re soon reminded. They encore with “Cool For Cats”, now a brilliantly deadpan slice of Seventies nostalgia, although sang by Difford as if he’s performed it a few too many times, at least until the instrumental break where the whole band lets rip with enthusiasm. They close with “Coffee in Bed”, unfortunately a song I’ve never liked but delivered to a finally eager crowd who indulge in a call’n’response with Tilbrook, followed by he and the band taking a final wander through the venue for an acoustic version of “Goodbye Girl”. Then it’s off out to present their pop-up shop, after which the tour is named, out in the foyer, where they will sell recordings of tonight’s gig along with other bits’n’bobs. Perhaps the bar may even re-open. That would be a canny, if cynical move but I don’t stay to find out.
Watch the video for "Up The Junction"
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