Review: The Stranglers, Glasgow Academy

Despite singer Jean-Jacques Burnel’s insistence on barking out swear-word-peppered salutations to the audience and the presence of so many thick-set middle-aged men that we might suspect the pub doors of Glasgow were unguarded for the duration, this was a gig unlike most bearing the label “punk”.

The Stranglers have always offered more than just a bit of three-chord pogo soundtracking, and here they showcased a sound that was enduringly diverse.

It was a gig that built slowly and with a heavy dose of indulgence for long-term fans, including the goth twang of The Raven and Sometimes’ Doors-like combination of Baz Warne’s cruising guitar and Dave Greenfield’s high-pitched keyboards. A version of Hanging Around aside, it was nearly halfway into the set when some classics were introduced, a folk-pastoral version of Strange Little Girl following the dream-like Golden Brown.

These served to kick the gig into life, with a sublimely urgent take on Bacharach and David’s Walk On By, the unifying rabble-rouser Something Better Change and new track Mercury Rising following, the latter from the imminent new album Giants and featuring a rapped lyric as incongruous as Debbie Harry’s on Blondie’s Rapture.

Their finale peaked perfectly, with an uproariously well-received No More Heroes leading into energetic psych-pop of recent song Relentless. Leading off the encore with classic geezer’s anthem Peaches was the first time the black-clad quartet on stage actually seemed to be playing to their decidedly masculine crowd.

Rating: ***