Stiff Little Fingers
Bristol Academy
23rd March, 2011

The audience has lost none of its enthusiasm for Belfast’s finest, and with Jake Burns and Ali McMordie from the original line-up still going strong, there’s every reason to believe they’ll be around for many years to come. Resplendent in white rhinestone shirt, frontman Burns gave it his all. From the opening bars of Roots Radics Rockers & Reggae, through Hope Street, Straw Dogs, At The Edge and Harp, his distinctive, rasping vocal is clearly heard through the maelstrom of noise that the band create. With an album on the way, favourites were supplemented with the new Full Steam Backwards, and Burns’ sideswipe at the banking crisis bares all the hallmarks of another classic. After a breakneck Suspect Device, the band returned and played arguably the greatest punkreggae cover ever, Bob Marley’s Johnny Was. Encore Two featured the Sonny Curtis classic, I Fought The Law, and Fingers gave it as much passion as The Clash used to, the impressive Burns playing Mick Jones’ lead parts note-perfect. The band played out with Alternative Ulster and, for the umpteenth time in the evening, the dance floor exploded into a mass of flailing limbs, beer and sweat.