Gang of Four Review

I've been remiss in not posting a review of Gang of Four from last week. They performed a powerful show at the Metro in Chicago last Wednesday. It was so powerful, in fact, that I immediately got back in line to get a ticket for their second night on Thursday.

In my first Gang of Four post, I said that I was worried about seeing the reformed group. They're considerably older, and part of their appeal all those years ago was their brash and admittedly youthful idealism and energy. Could they still hack it? The rock world is littered with performers who've overstayed their welcome, and it's been particularly harsh to musicians who have retired and then decided they needed to come back for more. But positive reports from the road convinced me to take the plunge. Boy, am I glad I did.

They took the stage with force and authority, launching into "Return the Gift" from Entertainment!, and there was no question they still had every bit of power that they ever did. And why not? They're elder statesmen at this point. The sound they formulated twenty-six years ago is the template for much of the music that's out there today--Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, the Futureheads, Radio 4 (who opened the show), the Rapture--and they proved they were still the masters of it. Of course, there's no way nostalgia can be taken out of the mix--these four musicians haven't played together since 1981, and the newest song they performed was ten years old (it had more than a decade on the second newest). But given all the bands currently displaying their influence, the music was nonetheless contemporary, even up to the minute.

Where most musicians these days seem to line up at their respective microphones, with only the lead singer roaming the stage to some degree, Gang of Four danced, paced, hopped, and in the case of vocalist Jon King, flailed from stage right to stage left, upstage to downstage. King, guitarist Andy Gill and bassist Dave Allen possessed every inch of the performing space.

Although political lyrics are not in the same vogue nowadays as the punky funky reggae party beats, the words to these songs as phrases and slogans seemed as timely as they ever did. "Fly the flag on foreign soil." "Dirt behind the daydream." "The fatherland's no place to die for." "Aim for politicians who'll treat your vote hope well/The last thing they'll ever do act in your interest." "Each day more death." When Gill sang "Paralyzed ("My ambitions come to nothing/What I wanted now seems just a waste of time/Can't make out what has gone wrong/I was good at what I did") you couldn't help but see the employees of United Airlines standing with him, just a day after the airline pulled out from paying their pensions. Actually, the fact that Gang of Four is now older may give the lyrics even more gravity. It's not surprising when a young band spouts radical and idealistic opinions, but when the same sentiments are expressed by a group with the experience of trying to live up to those ideas over the years, it's clear that they mean it, man.

As for me, I couldn't have been more of a fan. I pogoed unashamedly and shouted out the lyrics to most every song. The band was so inspirational that, as I said at the beginning, I came back on Thursday night and did it all again. It seemed like the word about Wednesday night's impressive show had gotten out, because the club seemed much more full the second time around.


And there's more good news. This week Rhino reissued Gang of Four's debut album Entertainment!, supplementing it with eight extra tracks. This truly is one of the all-time great albums, and you owe it to yourself to have your own, personal copy. The CD version I've got is several years old and has only four extra tracks, so I'll be trading up.