Hugh Cornwell– The Gov – Sunday 5 May 2019
Words Geoff Jenke
I last saw Hugh Cornwell way back in 1979, 10thMarch to be exact, at Apollo Stadium. At the time Hugh was the lead singer/guitarist with punk/new wave band The Stranglers. I wrote after the event that I was the odd one out, in my jeans and a jumper, with the rest of the crowd wearing torn black clothing, extra large shirts (torn of course), overalls with lots of band badges, white shirts with skinny ties and even one guy dressed up as a mummy. It was LOUD to the extreme and the only time Hugh spoke was to tell the police to “F-k Off” and to give radio station 5KA a blast for being so straight with the music they were playing. Lord knows what he thinks of radio stations today.
This evening it was just Hugh with a bass player and a drummer, naturally all decked out in black. As for the crowd, it was just jeans and T shirts, not ripped.
Forty years later it is also not so loud. Hugh played two sets, the first being a collection of solo songs he has recorded over the years. The band started with Pure Evel(as in Evel Knievel) from Hugh’s latest album Monster. The band came out all guns blazing and this song was quite possibly the best song of the evening. The follow up Leave Me Alonefrom 2000 album hi fi, wasn’t far behind the opening song. The title track of the new album, Monster, pays homage to special effects wizard Ray Harryhousen, without whom according to George Lucas, there would not have been Star Wars. In fact, the new album pays homage to a lot of people, including Evel Knievel on the opening song Pure Evel. As the set went on, I was wondering if he was playing the songs the wrong way around. The rest of the songs, while still good, lacked the punch of the opening five or six songs. Stuck in Daily Mail Landhad some nice “jangly” guitar and Black Hair, Black Eyes, Black Tiecertainly had the place rocking.
Hugh Cornwell left the Stranglers 30 years ago and while he hasn’t re-invented the wheel with his songs, they have been constantly good and on occasionally great.
The second set was probably what most of the people were there for, Strangler songs and they didn’t disappoint, playing most of the favourites. The Stranglers had a good keyboard sound to their songs and at times this was missing from the sound.
They opened with Nuclear Device (The Wizard of Oz), maybe the only song ever written about the then Premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the crowd lapping up the final “Australia” chant. Nine of the twelve tracks played had been released as singles so it was a case of give the people what they want. Nice ‘n’ Sleazyand Strange little Girlstill sounded exciting, with Strange Little Girlprobably my highlight of the Strangler songs played.
Golden Brownmissed the keyboard sound and while it was their biggest hit, it was the biggest miss of the evening. However No More Heroescertainly pumped the crowd up and Skin Deephad them singing along.
After DuchessHugh informed us that “this is where we usually go off and have a cup of tea, then come back and play a couple more songs but we are lazy buggers so we will stay here and play two more”. They finished with Hanging Around, which was sensational and the powerful Tank closed the set.
Hugh announced he would come out to the merch area and say hullo to anyone who wanted to see him and sign some flesh, “just flesh, no vinyl” he half joked.
Splitting the sets into solo and Stranglers songs wasn’t a bad idea. Surprisingly it was the first set that impressed me more. The Stranglers songs were very welcome, but Hugh has moved on from them. That said, if they had played Grip and Always the Sun in the Strangler’s set, it may have been a different opinion.
Whatever, on a cold frosty Sunday night, watching Hugh Cornwell is far better than sitting home watching (non) reality TV.
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