Quick review: Scritti Politti

Frankly, I did not know what to expect. Naively, I was sort of thinking of oldish men playing slightly slowed-down versions of songs they played in the late 70s and early 80s. I expected outdated haircuts and some form of punk / wave attitude towards the crowd, if you get my gist.

If this was a gameshow I would have just lost the jackpot. Bam! What we got was a kick-ass fantastic band consisting of members of mixed ages and a gentleman who didn't look his age at all but who you would have definitely associated with the folk genre rather than either punk, new wave, or big hair pop. No gimmicks on stage as in no fancy lighting, no projections, no nothing. Interesting.

Apart from a couple of older numbers - they actually started their set with the biggest hit - the material played mainly spanned the past decade and included quite a few songs from the rap album and a few from the reagge influenced records. As mentioned above, this band was tight and clearly enjoyed performing. It was heart-warming to watch. The crowd was middle-aged and up for it.

The best thing about the evening, really, was frontman (only permanent member and sole songwriter to be precise) Green Gartside's humour. How this man ended up as a musician and not a stand-up comedian is beyond me. I was almost waiting for the songs to end so that I could hear another of his stories (loved the one where he was given Joni Mitchell's guitar in a hotel in LA and felt compelled to use it, so wrote a song - might as well), his jokes, or just his remarks that would set the room into fits of laughter. Absolutely wonderful.

So yes, to summarise, I was slightly disappointed with the choice of songs being performed but delighted by the actual performance of them and inspired by the man Gartside - fresh, young, funny and overall likeable.

Preview addition: Scritti Politti

Even though I have known about this gig for some time, we somehow missed adding it to the calendar and subsequently it did not make this week's preview. 

British left-wing post-punk band Scritti Politti are performing this Thursday at HAU1. I have been told that recent performances have been really good. And who really knows how many times they will return to Berlin in future. Head on over, enjoy one of their energetic performances, all the while getting a music history lesson on experimental post-punk and 80s synth pop and be able to say "yeah, sure I went to see Scritti Politti" to your grandchildren one day. I mean, they used to tour with Joy Division and Gang of Four but then played inspiration to so many big hair synth pop bands!