With the Tories in power and the EDL, UKIP and the BNP gathering support, these are fertile times for Billy Bragg, British pop's socialist conscience.
Having grown relatively fluffy during the Labour years, last night’s mammoth, sold-out show displayed a renewed hard edge alongside the cheery anecdotes of American touring and the best Fabian Society gag ever. He even offered a grudging half-apology for tactically voting Lib-Dem at the last election, before decrying the Pope, Richard Dawkins, Trotskyites and the O2. Back against the wall politically, he’s a compelling entertainer once again.
Now a 55-year-old with a beard “disguising a multitude of chins”, Bragg’s voice is ripening at the very moment his music has become more subtle, more rewarding and less anthemic, as selections from his new beguiling country-tinged album, Tooth And Nail (he also railed against anyone suggesting said new album might, in fact, be country-tinged) confirmed. Favourites abounded over the two and a half hours before, to the diehards’ delight, he shed his band to play his 30-year-old, 17-minute debut album, Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy, in its entirety for the second encore. Warm, angry, nostalgic and contemporary: this might just have been the ultimate Billy Bragg experience.
