Date: July 5 2024

Venue: Forge Camden

Price: £25.00

This Is Pop/Statue Of Liberty/No Language In Our Lungs/Love On A Farmboy’s Wages/Real By Reel/Towers Of London/Paper And Iron (Notes And Coins)/Senses Working Overtime/Jason And The Argonauts /Ball And Chain/The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead/Summer’s Cauldron/Grass/No Thugs In Our House/Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)/Rocket From A Bottle /Respectable Street/Living Through Another Cuba/Generals And Majors/Making Plans For Nigel/Stupidly Happy/Life Begins At The Hop

Very odd this. This was like a basic covers band knocking out old XTC material. Technically they could sing and play but all the details were wrong. In no particular order: no keyboards ( a critical component of many XTC tracks), a guitarist playing a Les Paul (the ultimate rock guitar and totally unrelated to the XTC sound), vocals that were admittedly in tune but had none of the dynamism and expression of Andy Partridge, and a somewhat perverse selection of songs that included obscure stuff and excluded some great stuff. To be avoided. No photos because the two front guys were distinctly non-XTC.