LIVE: HUGH CORNWELL – Perth, 10th August 2024

Shane | 12 August 2024 | Reply

LIVE: HUGH CORNWELL – Perth, 10th August 2024
Supported by Radio Radio – The Rosemount Hotel
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Linda Dunjey

Hugh Cornwell has had an impressive solo career since leaving The Stranglers way back in 1990, and latest solo album – his tenth – Moments Of Madness is as good as anything he’s released through his long, impressive career. The buzz in the room is palpable for his first trip Down Under in a few years, and he did not disappoint.

First up is Radio Radio – and for anybody wondering who’d want to see a cover band supporting a favourite artist, the answer tonight is… almost everybody in attendance, because Radio Radio – led by music critic and author Barry Divola – play a lively set of tunes from ’78-’79 including Buzzcock’s Ever Fallen In Love With Someone, Nick Lowe’s Cruel To Be Kind, The Only Ones’ Another Girl Another Planet, and Elvis Costello & the Attractions’ Pump It Up. Every tune got the crowd into the right mood, clapping, singing, dancing, heads bopping, feet tapping. It was great fun and you can’t ask better than that.

[Show picture list]

Cornwell lays down the ground rules for the show from the get-go: A couple of songs from a solo album, then a “nugget” from The Stranglers catalogue – a mixture of classics and deeper cuts, a hardcore fan’s dream list, really.

First up is Coming Out Of The Wilderness and the chiming guitar riff of Too Much Trash, two of the best from Moments Of Madness. Later we’ll hear the reggae-cored title track and When I Was a Young Man, all proving that his songwriting remains as clever and sharp as ever.

Presented in a simple trio format – drums, bass, guitar – the songs shine like rough diamonds, instantly recognisable when stripped to their compelling core. The irresistible bass line of Skin Deep strikes a chord and is repurposed here in Western Australia by many as “better watch out for the skimpies”, referencing the scantily clad bartenders of many a working man’s pub, and is a huge crowd pleaser.

Wrong Side of The Tracks, with its Crosstown Traffic-like refrain, and Delightful Nightmare from Hooverdam lead into another Stranglers track, Strange Little Girl – a top ten hit in the UK but relatively obscure over here.

Totem & Taboo and Bad Vibrations from Totem & Taboo album keep up the pace, the super tight instrumental outro of the latter showing just how in step this band are. Who Wants The World is another welcome Stranglers ‘nugget’, this time from 1980.

It would have been easy for Cornwell to simply play The Best Of The Stranglers – and some would have been happy with that – but his determination to rightly focus on his exemplary solo work and sprinkle some deeper cuts from his former band is a far better artistic choice, and one undoubtedly appreciated by his hardcore fans.

Some though, as is endemic nowadays, prefer to talk right through a show, prompting Cornwell to justifiably grumble, “Just talk amongst yourselves. We’ll go have a cup of tea if you like.” Why pay for a ticket then talk over the top of the artist, annoying both them and everyone around you? Some people. Thankfully most of us were both interested and respectful.

The aforementioned two more from Moments Of Madness precede Tramp, another lesser-known number from his former band, before two celebrity-themed tracks from 2018’s Monster: Evel (about Evel Kneivel) and Mr Leather (a tribute to Lou Reed). Stranglers evergreen classic Always The Sun gets the biggest crowd participation of the night thus far.

[Show picture list]

The main set is closed out by Another Kind of Love from Cornwell’s first solo offering, Wolf, Out of My Mind (from The Stranglers album 10) and Live it and Breathe it (from The Fall & Rise of Hugh Cornwell compilation).

The call for an encore is understandably strong, and Cornwell & Co were all too happy to oblige before the main man got writers cramp signing records and posters for appreciative fans for almost forty-five minutes – and what an encore it was.

Early Stranglers track Nice ‘n’ Sleazy is first, followed by Big Bug from his Nosferatu album with Robert Williams, before an exquisitely jazzy version of arguably The Stranglers most well-known hit, Golden Brown. The show is finally closed with the punchy snarl of Nuclear Device (The Wizard of Aus) – originally written about Queensland tyrant-premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen – which goes down a storm.

The Stranglers nor Cornwell were ever punks in the sense that we remember punk rock, all gobbing and swearing and homemade torn clothing and safety pins. They always boasted punk attitude in spades, though, and were never shy of ignoring trends and making the art they wanted to, no matter what, all the while ensuring it was catchy and relatable. Cornwell’s solo catalogue shows that has never changed – and we hope it never will – and as we filed out the door, we hear lifelong fans singing the show’s praises alongside newcomers revelling in how accessible they found the songs and rhythms and melodies they’d never heard before, and how thoughtful and insightful the lyrics were. There can be no greater review than that.

Set List:

Coming Out of the Wilderness
Too Much Trash
Skin Deep
Wrong Side of the Tracks
Delightful Nightmare
Strange Little Girl
Totem and Taboo
Bad Vibrations
Who Wants the World?
Moments of Madness
When I Was a Young Man
Tramp
Pure Evel
Mr. Leather
Always the Sun
Another Kind of Love
Out of My Mind
Live it and Breathe it