I'd been a fan of the Stranglers since 1977 when I bought their single 'No More Heroes'. I didn't buy that many LPs in those days, mainly because it was cheaper to buy singles and looking back through my collection of 45s my tastes were pretty varied. But I suppose as a kid I was less aware of genres and bought whatever caught my attention on the radio or on Top of the Pops. So I bought everything from The Real Thing and The Drifters to The Motors and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
But back to the Meninblack as The Stranglers were known. They had just released their seventh studio album Feline and played to a capacity crowd at the Playhouse on February the 11th. As I was to discover, The Stranglers had a reputation for bringing along unusual support acts and certainly the opener on the Feline tour was no exception. The lights went down and on came an entertainer by the name of Nik Malham. He was wearing a blazer and straw boater and proceeded to sing jolly songs and tap dance. I have an interview with him in the fanzine Strangled where he describes being showered with beer by a, not unsurprisingly, unappreciative crowd at the start of the tour. But gradually he won the audiences over mainly thanks to the hardcore fans who were following the band round the country. They got to know him and admired his guts for doing such a routine night after night.
Unfortunately The Stranglers had some technical problems at the Playhouse that night. Bassist JJ Burnel and guitarist Hugh Cornwell were using radio mics strapped to the heads which proved to be somewhat unreliable. This came to a climax with JJ losing his temper completely and he stormed off stage followed by his bemused bandmates. There ensued much scurrying around by the road crew who set up a couple of mic stands and I imagine the radio mics probably ended up in a bin after getting a good kicking from JJ's Doc Marten boots. Over the years their keyboard player Dave Greenfield regularly used those sort of mics but presumably had fewer problems with them.
Having only bought three of their albums before that tour I wouldn't have known everything they played and looking on setlist.fm I can see that they played songs from eight different albums. But I would have enjoyed hearing the well-known numbers such as 'Duchess', 'Golden Brown' and 'No More Heroes' along with tracks from the new album, Feline.
The encore was made up of three songs new to me though the final number stuck in my head, namely 'Genetix' which was from their album The Raven. I was impressed with drummer Jet Black's intro and by the time of their return to the Playhouse two years later, on the Aural Sculpture tour, I was more familiar with their back catalogue.
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