While they could never quite match up to The Sex Pistols white hot nihilism or The Clash's cross-cultural cachet, BUZZCOCKS' influence has nonetheless been enormous over the past 30 years. Morrissey has made no secret of the fact Pete Shelley's group were the blueprint for The Smiths; Noel Gallagher has often paraded 'Singles Going Steady' as one of his crucial recordings of all time and Kurt Cobain personally chose them as the opening act for Nirvana's ill-fated final European tour.
Yet, while few pop fanatics worth their salt would argue the toss over Buzzcocks' status as one of THE singles bands of all time, this particular jaunt is to remind us that their opening pair of albums - 'Another Music in a Different Kitchen' and 'Love Bites' (released within a whirlwind 8-month spell during 1978) - remain amongst the most enduring and relevant LPS recorded during the Punk epoch. The fact they were here to play these albums back to back in sequential order inevitably left Messrs. Shelley and Diggle open to criticisms of "selling out" (whatever that means these days) but after spending the best part of the last two decades nurturing one of the few non-redundant reformations in rock, surely Buzzcocks deserved to be cut a little slack.
This writer had already chanced upon a derisory write-up of this very show where the reviewer carped and whined about the band's apparent lack of energy on stage and struggled to get over his ridiculous prejudices about Shelley and Diggle's 'punk veterans' status. That would be fine and dandy except that my fellow scribe must have been attending a different show to the one he appeared to be writing about. Sure, Pete Shelley is hardly the wiry whippersnapper he was when 'Another Music...' was first released, but there was nothing wrong with his commitment or stamina from where I was standing. Steve Diggle, meanwhile, still has the enviable physique he always had and his sharp, Mod-ish appearance and enthusiasm in throwing all manner of Guitar God shapes showed just how much he's still enjoying this. The excellent new rhythm section of drummer Danny Farrant and ridiculously fresh-faced bassist Chris, meanwhile, had been drilled to perfection and the opening salvo of 'Fast Cars', 'No Reply' and the proto-hardcore blast of 'You Tear Me Up' sounded as exhilarating and fresh as they did three decades ago.
The pre-ordained setlist did little to diffuse the excitement of hearing these sublime buzzsaw punk-pop songs tumbling out in such a thrilling rush. 'I Don't Mind' has long since attained classic status, but 'Get On Our Own' and Diggle's evergreen 'Autonomy' matched it for spark and sass, while a visceral version of the drum-heavy 'Moving Away From The Pulsebeat' and 'Sixteen' - with its' 'Bolero'-style rhythm and madcap, Stockhausen-style deconstructed section - demonstrated Pete Shelley was always motivated by much more than mere Top 40 placings.
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The songs from the commercially-successful, but critically under-rated 'Love Bites' sounded even better. A venomous 'Ever Fallen In Love' inevitably shook the rafters loose, but it was easily rivalled by the bittersweet elegance of 'Nostalgia' and a steely 'Sixteen Again'. The more 'experimental' second side of the album was equally resonant, affording a rare chance to hear tracks like Steve Diggle's heartfelt, acoustic 'Love Is Lies' and the Can-esque perpetual motion riffing of 'ESP' in all their esoteric glory.The closing 'Late For The Train' was magnificent too, ending in an animated display of pounding from Farrant as the band trooped off to rapturous applause.
Admittedly it helped that Buzzcocks had a ready-made greatest hits in reserve for the encore, but should you be compiling a compendium of timeless pop, songs like 'What Do I Get?', the randy 'Orgasm Addict' and the existential brilliance of 'Everybody's Happy Nowadays' should automatically be included. The fact they sounded so capable of fending off the ravages of time as they did tonight, though, seemed almost against nature.
It's easy to be cynical about shows like these. The audience was, after all, made up of at least a sizeable amount of people keen to enjoy a trip down memory lane and both Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle are both more than aware that Punk was never supposed to be about such reactionary exercises. Yet after leaving behind one of the best-looking corpses in rock the first time around and doing little to sully it since they resurrected themselves in 1989, Buzzcocks deserve better than to be viewed as merely an exercise in nostalgia. I'd intended to finish by saying that if you'd been there you'd have understood, but some press-release-regurgitating members of my profession apparently didn't. Their loss, all things considered.
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