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Review: 'Sleaford Mods / Steve Ignorant’s Slice of Life'
'Irish Centre, Leeds, 28th September 2015'   


-  Genre: 'Punk/New Wave'

Our Rating:
I should perhaps begin by stating that it was Mark Wynn who introduced me to the work of Sleaford Mods. Then, some time later, ‘Divide and Exit’ and ‘Chubbed Up’ landed and the Mods exploded. That said, back in only March this year, I saw the duo play to 400 punters in York, and receive a mixed reception. Six months on, following the release of ‘Key Markets’ and a landmark Glastonbury set, they’ve sold out a 1,300 capacity venue and the crowd is rabid. And the first support act is one Mark Wynn.

Having seen him do his Iggy-meets-Suicide performance-art lunacy show in tiny pub venues and leaving audiences of a dozen or so nonplussed and antagonised, it’s elating to see the maverick performer winning over some 800 people by strutting around, shirtless and wearing a tiara, yelling about Nick Cave over tinny backing tracks and interspersing his random rants with ramshackle renditions of songs like ‘Rip Off the Fall’ and ‘She Fancies Me, That One in Age Concern’.

Crass, I have to admit, are one of those bands who have kind of bypassed me: I’m abundantly aware of their work and influence, their significance, but I’ve never really engaged with their music and have a certain ambivalence to their political stances. Still, it’s not every contemporary act who could get Steve ignorant to tag along as a support.

Should I decry Ignorant as a sell-out for wearing Levi jeans or bemoan the cliché of some of his ultra-leftist-wing rhetoric, which seems to conflict (see what I did there?) with the savagery he threatens upon anyone who inflicts pain on an animal, be it a dog or an elephant? Not tonight. He leads his youthful backing band (acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, electric piano) through a set of impassioned socio-political rants and musings and a fair portion of the crowd love it, while many of the younger members receive a vital musical education.

Steve was barely halfway through the word ‘goodnight’ when 400 people rushed forward in an attempt to get close to the stage, and immediately, the capacity audience made its presence felt.

Sleaford Mods were greeted with a wild reception, but kept things low-key, with bass-led grinders ‘Live Tonight’, ‘Bronx in a Six’ and ‘Arabia’ at the front of the set. The sound’s pretty dismal and the volume a little lacking, but with so many voices chanting out every word, no-one seems to notice, much less care. Given that they’re not the most mobile of performers, they do look a little lost on such a large stage at times, but it isn’t long before the first idiot-dancing bozo leaps up to help fill out the space.

The new album dominates the setlist, and Williamson, in typically lippy style suggests anyone unfamiliar with the new material go “buy the fuckin’ album”. There are plenty chanting the words right back as he sneers and snarls them into the mic, working up a fiendish sweat in the process. Strangely, it seems that playing to a ‘safe’ crowd makes them work all the harder, as if they feel the need to prove they’re not growing complacent just because they’re suddenly popular. I say ‘them’, but while James Williamson is sweating himself to death, Andrew Fearn just stands, swinging from side to side, grinning, one hand in trakky bottoms pocket and the other clutching a bottle of Magners to his crotch.

But about the infinitely larger venues and audiences, the fact Sleaford Mods are now a ‘big’ band: how does I feel? Different, for sure. But then, you can’t really blame them for that. ‘Key Markets’ is hardly a sell-out album, and if anything, it’s their most diverse and challenging yet. They’ve reached a wider audience by continuing to do what they always did. Again, it’s more a matter of audiences coming around rather than the band pandering to popular trends, and if truth be told, ‘Key markets’ is a pretty uncompromising set of songs.

‘Jolly Fucker’, ‘Tied Up in Nottz’ and ‘Jobseeker’ are obvious crowd-pleasers, but equally, they’re belting, memorable tunes.

The encore starts with the slower, rather uncharacteristic ‘Tarantula Deadly Cargo’. Some clown leaps on stage to stagedive, minus his trousers and undercrackers during ‘Tweet Tweet Tweet’. Williamson ad-libs the lyrics to remark on his ‘nice arse’, ‘big pair of bollocks’ and ‘small dick’.

The stage is rushed at the end of the set with fans wanting to shake hands, and gush. It’s clear that the unlikely-looking pair are genuine heroes. The voice of a generation? I reckon so.

  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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Sleaford Mods / Steve Ignorant’s Slice of Life - Irish Centre, Leeds, 28th September 2015
Sleaford Mods
Sleaford Mods / Steve Ignorant’s Slice of Life - Irish Centre, Leeds, 28th September 2015
Steve Ignorant’s Slice of Life
Sleaford Mods / Steve Ignorant’s Slice of Life - Irish Centre, Leeds, 28th September 2015
Mark Wynn