The atmosphere tonight transformed into that of a festival tent with a couple of old school fans standing on top of the audience, several hands holding them aloft whilst they danced to opening track “Wonderful Way to Go” and it was great to see the security leaving the crowd to their own devices rather than pointing the finger of authority.
It was probably even more meaningful that security were so good natured this evening as New Model Army have never been a band to shy away from fighting for the people – the anti-war lyrics on “Spirit of the Falklands” being as meaningful now as it was back when they released it in 1984, and needless to say the recent passing of Margaret Thatcher didn’t go unnoticed either.
Without any new material out this was all about the bands back catalogue, and although frontman Justin Sullivan admitted they couldn’t remember how to play a song that had been written about Portsmouth, this certainly didn’t matter when “No Rest” and “White Coats” were sounding so good.
Having already played a decent length set, the obligatory encore saw Sullivan return to the stage with acoustic guitar as the tribal beats introduced the start of “Seven Times” before the band ended the night with another old single “Green and Grey”.
So as those standing above the crowd were joined by others being more conventional by sitting upon their partners shoulders, it was a good old fashioned gig and one whereby the crowd played just as much of an important part in making the evening memorable as the band themselves had by giving us such a great performance.
