By Paul Loader

Now I have to be honest right from the outset. Billy Bragg is not an artist I would normally rush to see. However, when you are offered a free ticket in good seats, it would seem quite churlish to refuse and so myself and mate ‘Bob’ set off for an evening of political rhetoric and vitriolic fervour at the Bristol Colston Hall, or so I would have thought.

If you haven’t already, read my review on the opening act ‘Wallis Bird’, who I thought was phenomenal and set a friendly, enjoyable tone for the evening, I would suggest that you do and introduce yourself to the next KT Tunstall.

The stage was set with two guitar combos miked up…..and that was it, apart for the huge black backdrop, which helped make the stage. 

Billy Bragg ambles on with an “Evening all” and off he went. 

Now I only profess to know about three BB songs, but that didn’t matter as he is very much a musical poet, and every song painted a clear picture that I could see in my minds eye. 

I always loved the way that he would play a distorted electric guitar on his own, and only ever picked up an acoustic for ‘Sexuality’ for which he described himself as a ‘Judas’.

Although I am not overly familiar with his songs, I really do love his style and he is definitely the originator of the local ‘twang’ made so popular by the likes of Lily Allan obvious in their singing. 

I also loved his sense of ‘stand up’. As far as BB was concerned he was in the corner of his local pub chatting to a few close mates, and NOT as it happened in a packed Bristol Colston Hall. 

He is very sharp, and extremely funny.  

When he made the comment that he was a ‘Marmite’ musician, you either loved him or hated him, some bright spark from the balcony shouted out that she had Marmite tattooed on her bum. That was it, the whole evening kept on being brought back to this tattoo of marmite. BB even managed to work it into one of his songs, which was hilarious. 

Billy did get quite political towards the end of the concert, and you could imagine him standing in a church pulpit giving it a bit of ‘heaven & hell’, as opposed to his vocal support for the striking teachers. 

However, even as he pontificated about British Identity and his testimony of how the very first Rock Against Racism changed his life, he was never overtly heavy or preachy and I could not disagree with anything that he said. 

One thing that did make me chuckle was as he sang his classic about there being power in the unions; the crowd yelled and cheered its approval. What amused me was the whole place was stuffed to the rafters with middle aged, middle class middle management and university lecturers (yes that is a slight exaggeration). These would have been the kind of people that the unions would have vilified 30 years ago. 

However, everybody felt comfortable about remembering the passion of their youth and for this night only most swigged beer in the bar as opposed to the normal dry sherry in the college refectory. 

Billy’s Clash tribute (as his imagined alter ego Johnny Clash) was my total favourite, and the story leading up to it had the whole audience transfixed. As did his short rendition of Johnny Cash singing ‘Pin Ball Wizard. 

He sang my absolute favourite right at the end of his encore. ‘New England’ 

We may none of us have been 21 again (including the man himself) but we all sang along as if we were. 

All I can say is a HUGE thank you Bob for dragging me along as I really did enjoy this ageing rocker (BB’s words not mine) do what he does best…..tell a great story, sing a great song and prick once again our social conscience.  

“I don’t want to change the world, I’m not looking for a New England…I’m just looking for another girl!”