{"id":645,"date":"2010-12-03T11:12:37","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T11:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/?p=645"},"modified":"2010-12-06T10:32:03","modified_gmt":"2010-12-06T10:32:03","slug":"billy-bragg-at-rock-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/billy-bragg-at-rock-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Bragg, Rock City December 2, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I bought a ticket for Billy Bragg last night, the umpteenth time I’ve seen him. Then the Nottingham Post’s reviewer was snowbound, so I agreed to step in at the last minute. Would I have enjoyed the show more had I not agreed to review it? I doubt it. This was by far the worst Bragg show I’ve been to, indeed, the only under par Bragg show I’ve been to. Anyway, here’s the extended web version of the review, and a download of the song that was the highlight of the show.<\/p>\n

Billy Bragg, Rock City, December 2, 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Billy Bragg first visited Nottingham with an unforgettable, seven encore show at the Garage, 26 years ago. His greatest triumph at Rock City was on the eve of New Labour\u2019s 1997 election victory. Another 13 years on, a weather sparsened crowd wanted to know what he had to say about the new government. And the answer was\u2026 not much. A solo show that started promisingly petered out into too many speeches that tried too hard. Beating the BNP in Barking is heart-warming, but nowhere near as significant as the arrival of the coalition, which Bragg accidentally voted for (\u2018Never heard of tactical voting?\u2019 he asked a heckler, of which there were a few). His heart wasn\u2019t in pressing the converted to say \u2018yes\u2019 to \u2018electoral reform \u2013 hard to write a song about\u2019. He was more comfortable slagging off the World Cup victory for the Russian mafia, \u2018Let\u2019s just watch it on TV\u2019 and praising student protesters at the University of Nottingham.<\/p>\n

There were high points, of course there were, in a set that didn\u2019t include nearly enough songs. \u2018Levi Stubbs Tears\u2019 never fails to move. There was a lovely encore of \u2018Tankpark Salute\u2019 and \u2018Following The Wrong Star\u2019. Sadly, his fine rendition of Woody Guthrie\u2019s \u2018Ain\u2019t Got No Home In This World Any More\u2019 made his own political songs pale in comparison. The audience liked to sing along to the honest, naturalistic love songs that he excels at, but didn\u2019t play enough of. Bragg isn\u2019t content to be the Mike Leigh of Indie song writing and described himself at one point as a stand up comedian. Hard for this diehard fan to say, but his politics, tonight, were all over the place. A condescending spiel about cynicism suggested that he might want to consult a dictionary to establish what the word actually means. OK, he\u2019s a \u2018glass half full guy\u2019, but perhaps it\u2019s time to give the politics a rest and leave the agitating to the students occupying Nottingham University\u2019s Trent Building. The hour and three quarters concluded with a rapturous singalong of \u2018New England\u2019, which at least ensured him a triumphant retreat.<\/p>\n

Billy Bragg – Levi Stubbs’ Tears<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I bought a ticket for Billy Bragg last night, the umpteenth time I’ve seen him. Then the Nottingham Post’s reviewer was snowbound, so I agreed to step in at the last minute. Would I have enjoyed the show more had I not agreed to review it? I doubt it. This was by far the worst Bragg show I’ve been to, indeed, the only under par Bragg show I’ve been to. Anyway, here’s the extended web version of the review, and a download of the song that was the highlight of the show. Billy Bragg, Rock City, December 2, 2010 Billy Bragg first visited Nottingham with an unforgettable, seven encore show at the Garage, 26 years ago. His greatest triumph at Rock City was on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-songs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidbelbin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}