Any fans of disco? You're in the wrong gig!

 The Bard of Avon in the afternoon, The Bard Of Barking in the evening...

Can you believe Billy Bragg has been around for 40 years?!?  It all started with Life's A Riot With Spy vs Spy ("pay no more than £2.99 for this seven track album") in May '83 and the boy hasn't stopped since.  Excluding Glastonbury (where I've seen him most years), I've seen him live in St Albans and two years ago in The Roundhouse (which is where we are again) - I wasn't expecting this to be massively different!

And massively different it most definitely wasn't, but it was a fun evening that left everyone feeling better about themselves.  Rather than a support act, he showed a film entitled "40 years in 40 minutes" which took us from his very first TV appearance to the present day, featuring some charming footage with some very dodgy haircuts.  At one point, we got to see some lovely footage of him on stage with Michael Stipe and Natalie Merchant - the lad's got some famous people in that phone of his!

After the film, there was a short break to head to the bar or, more likely given the age of the audience, the toilet - amusingly there were several women next to me who were very excited about having to queue for the ladies - “it’s never happened to me at a Billy Bragg gig before”.

And then the man appeared - and basically he gave the people what they wanted.  His voice has definitely improved over the years and his banter is as free-flowing as ever.  He played most of the tracks you'd expect - I actually think I liked the ones that were slightly changed versions with "She’s Got A New Spell" and "Sexuality" both having delightful harmonies added to them and "St Swithins Day" being greatly improved by the addition of keyboards.  He was joined on stage by CJ Hill on various kinds of guitar (he was most impressive on the lap steel guitar) and JJ Stoney on keyboards and both they did a good job of keeping him on his toes.

I don't really have a lot more to say - the gig wouldn't have converted anyone, but there was no-one there that needed converting.  It was a good two hour set, with the encore comprising of Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy played through without stopping (which is the second time I've seen him do that this year) and so everyone went home happy!

One comment which is more for me than anyone else - I decided to go for standing tickets (because they were half the price of the seated ones) but having sat last time, I think that, at my age, it's money well spent.  Standing is fine if everyone stands in height order and keeps perfectly still throughout the entire gig, but the fuckers in front of me spent the entire time swaying from side to side.  How rude of them!

To end on a more positive note, let's end with some amusingly random quotes from old Bill

- Any oceanographers in tonight? (followed by a surprisingly loud cheer)

- I Googled “shacket” and it was all pictures of Paul Weller!

- There’s a section of my audience that struggles with trans rights - let’s refer to them as “geezers my age”.
- It was one day away from the start of my tour and they went and ruined everything by sacking Suella Braverman
- Music can’t change the world, but it can make you believe the world can be changed

Thanks for the forty years, Billy!