Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Do you remember this ad for "Complete Madness"?
Well if you do you're younger than you look.
I still don't know what "More hits than an elephant's memory" meant,
Suggestions please to the usual address.



Madness
O2 Academy Birmingham 10th December 2009

A sell out crowd snaking around the all new O2 Academy Birmingham greeted me. A conger eel of punters stretching beyond the Madness red double decker bus (blown off course according to its Camden Town destination board); snaking between the white vans from "Kentish Town Van Hire", stuffed to the gunnels with six thousand gross of the finest fezzes from the mystical east (or China), brought to Brum via a short sojourn in the Isle of Dogs "no questions asked Nosher". On went the queue past the Concert Online Live Recording wallahs poised to swap a recording of the nights doings for 30 quid of your hard earned. On and on went the line of punters past the luxury coaches (onboard bars appropriately stocked) past the panoply of "fly by night" pantechnicons to where.........finally I reached my journeys end, the back of the queue, somewhere east of Solihull - Bleedin' Nora if I'd have wanted a walk!

So when did Madness last tour the provinces? Nah no one could remember, not in this queue anyway. The blather in the queue went something like "It wasn't like this for UB40 Denise", and "I didn't realize the gig was here at the O2 Keith said they were playing the NIA". Bless 'em all. Hey no time to moan they've just opened another set of doors and we're in.

No support tonight just a re-run of "Take it or Leave it" the video made by Stiff main man number 2 Dave Robinson back in '81. I've got a VHS tape to tape of it in its entirety some where; shit if only I'd bought it rather than just taped it I could stick it on Ebay now with a chance of making at least 50p (less charges of course). Anyway it was preferable to see the film again rather than have to endure the sufferings of a support band and to have the attention diverted momentarily away from all things MAD.

And so to "One Step Beyond" which never fails to shuffle the punters into their natural positions. The "middle aged, slightly pissed, uninitiated, happy go lucky couple" who always seem to start off standing centre front without a care in the world prior to the eruption of "One Step Beyond", are usually hauled over the barrier mid track, or wrenched free from the bouncing mêlée and deposited safely and swiftly to the back of the auditorium into the arms of the "middle aged, slightly pissed, EXPERIENCED, happy go lucky couple.

Now I'm slightly embarrassed to say that due to the heavy turbulence and oscillation I encountered during the first three tracks of the evening it wasn't until "NW5", when things calmed down a smidge, that I realized something was not right up there. It was Bedders, he didn't quite seem himself. No, there was something very wrong with him. He was playing bass, yeah ok. He looked lean and lithe as always, check. His bald pate was highly polished as normal, also check. But something was not right. I needed to focus, the glasses went on, the glasses came off again, a small piece of yellow cloth was rubbed on the lenses and I took another look. It was then I realized; fuck me it's not Bedders at all! It's some kind of a Bedders lookie likie. I gave the glasses back to the guy standing next to me and shouted into his face. "It's not fuckin' BEDDERS!" He shouted back instantly intoxicating me with his spittle "I know, piss off and leave my glasses alone!" So where was Bedders? Madness without Bedders, next thing you know The Specials will be touring without Dammers!

Sad to say this Madness tour turned out to be a Christmas tour rather than a "Liberty of Norton Foldgate" tour, whether it was closer to "Complete Madness" or closer to "Total Madness" I couldn't say, but whether you were there or not here's the set list I'll let you decide for yousrself.

One Step Beyond
Embarrassment
The Prince
NW5
My Girl
Dust Devil
The Sun and the Rain
Johnny the Horse
Shut up
In the Rain
Clerkenwell Polka
I Chase the Devil
MKII
Bed & Breakfast Man
That Close
Ernie
Forever Young
Help
House of Fun
Wings of a Dove
Baggy Trousers
Our House
It must be Love
Tarzan's Nuts
Madness
Night Boat to Cairo

I'd have liked to have heard more from "Foldgate" (but perhaps I should be hung for such aberrations) still it was good to hear the new stuff mixed up with some long lost memories like "E.R.N.I.E" from "Absolutely". (E.R.N.I.E like The National Lottery crossed with HAL the computer from 2001 A Space Odyssey). And "Tarzan's Nuts", a skanked up version of the TV Tarzan theme tune from "One Step Beyond". Ron Ely the TV Tarzan, he made Roger Moore look like Charles Laughton and was so tough he could skin a marauding gorilla with his back turned - happy days.

We had a sing song with Suggs, by way of a communal carousing of The Beatles "Help". And we had yet another "all new" Birmingham O2 Academy technical glitch (ie fuck up), which silenced the speakers and meant the crowd had to carry "Baggy Trousers" to the first chorus. Then some dick behind the desk realized, and righted the problem, the ear drums of several punters were sacrificed amid the explosive restoration of sound, but no big deal eh.

"Night Boat to Cairo" came and went and the Birmingham crowd left fully satiated spilling out of the venue to steam in the December chill. The USB's sold, the fezzes stashed away, the pantechnicons packed up, the destination board changed, the tour of MAD rolled on into the night. So until Wolverhampton goodnight and TBC.

Ed