X-Ray Spex @ Roundhouse (London) 9/6/08

Not only is he our new columnist, but Dave Knapik will also be serving as the London Bureau Chief for RFC. Here's his first live review from across the pond...-Ed

You've got to admire a band who, in their first live appearance in over a decade, throw all caution aside and open with their biggest anti-hit. Most bands would save it for the end, or at least put it somewhere in the middle, but prudence and punk never got on well enough for that. Eschewing the song's famous feminist intro, "Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but I think," Poly Styrene stormed out on the stage of the Roundhouse and skipped straight to screaming, "Oh bondage, up yours! 1, 2, 3, 4!" as she confidently led her reunited X-Ray Spex into their much-deserved 30th anniversary party.

Due to the central position it occupied in UK punk history, a more appropriate venue than the Roundhouse would have been impossible to find without forcibly evicting the current residents of 41—43 Neal Street and setting up a resurrected Roxy amongst its ruins. It was in this former Chalk Farm railway shed that the women who would go on to form The Slits saw Patti Smith in May 1976. Several weeks later in July the Ramones made their legendary UK debut on its stage, a gig that was instrumental in igniting Britain's nascent punk movement. X-Ray Spex were no strangers to the Roundhouse during that time, though having last played it in 1978, a return to the crime scene was long overdue.

Braces long gone and displaying a decidedly less military fashion sense, on the surface Poly Styrene at first appeared to have changed quite a bit in the past few decades. Looking elegantly grown up in a tasteful black dress, one might be forgiven for mistaking the punk princess for a younger Sandie Shaw (N.B., this isn't an insult at all, for like any Smiths-raised youth, I adore Sandie Shaw). Thankfully all doubt was quickly dispelled as soon as she opened her mouth and that glorious air raid alarm of a voice flew out. Who needs a helmet from the army surplus when one shout of, "Eins, zwei, drei, vier!" kicks off "Genetic Engineering" with the force of an atom bomb?

Warbling against the saxophone in a fight for control of each tune, Poly sang nearly every song from the band's classic Germfree Adolescents album. Thirty years on, most music of any genre shows its age, even the most initially abrasive forms of it. X-Ray Spex's pro-woman politics, however, still seem ahead of their time in this age of Sarah Palin faux-feminism. Their critiques of consumer society feel as apt as ever, with the promise of happiness still for sale in every shop on the high street.

Part of the magic of a band like X-Ray Spex lies in their aggressive naivety. Their lyrics could always make you feel as though it were possible to change the world with a song. That feeling, sadly, may be the most anachronistic element of a reunion like this. Three decades of distance from punk's birth has rendered hope in music as a force for social change relatively impotent. How that happened is the subject of a novel's worth of digression, but if there were more Poly Styrenes in the world, we might already have had part of that revolution in hand.

Listening to Germfree Adolescents fifteen years after I first discovered it, however, I'm taken back to a time when I had more hope. Not only the words, but that sound—the beautifully tortured sax and Poly's frenetic vocals turning simple power chord pop melodies into a raging storm—motivated me to care about the politics of everyday life. Yeah, sure, it's naive to feel that pop music can somehow make life better, but any sort of hope is essentially naive. Hearing this music live, with a giant roomful of other people for whom these songs are no doubt personal anthems as well, provided a reminder that maybe not all that much has changed in thirty years, we just grew up and believed everyone else when they told us it had.

After playing what must have been every song the band knew, they said their goodbyes and, of course, the audience begged for more. How do you play an encore when you've already played your entire catalogue? Fuck it, play it again! The Spex returned to the stage, not even flinching about running through the best bits of the set one more time. Inviting her daughter Celeste on stage, a transgenerational reprise of "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" provided the highlight of this last hurrah. For people that grew up with the riot grrrl movement of the 90s, Poly Styrene was the start of it all, standing up and screaming her mind in a male-dominated scene over a decade prior. Seeing her on stage with her own daughter, shouting the words to what has become the most notorious feminist punk anthem of all time, not only the gig, but music history itself, seemed to come full circle.

As a long-time fan of a band that, for all intents and purposes, really only had one record (one amazing fucking record) released before they burned out of existence, the last thing I expected to be doing in September 2008 was seeing them live. Punk reunions seem especially absurd since the nihilistic credo of "No Future" was so central to the genre's aesthetic. Regardless of how far out the idea of this performance was, it worked. Poly sounded fantastic, the songs stood the test of time both sonically and lyrically and I learned there's no better way to spend a Saturday night than shouting back at the stage, "Yeah, I hit him back with my pet rat!"

Please don't wait another thirty years before showing us such a great time again, Poly. I'm ready for more next weekend!

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Comments

[Year Zero]

Hey guys,

Thought you would be interested to know, we have just released on our Year Zero label the live CD / DVD from X-ray's gig at The Roundhouse last year.

Check out www.futurenoisemusic.com for more info and www.myspace.com/ayearzero for videos and music.

www.futurenoisemusic.com
www.myspace.com/ayearzero

[tin whiskers]

Hi,
Its sounds very good.Its amazing experience.Thanks for posting...

[Aubrey]

Sounds like this was an amazing show/experience. I'm going to have to say I'm a wee bit jealous!!!