Gig review: BIG COUNTRY – Islington Assembly Hall, London, 5 May 2023

May 15th, 2023 by andynathan

For Big Country, their debut album ‘The Crossing’ is rightly regarded as a classic, spawning three hit singles and countless other fan favourites, and establishing that signature bagpipe style guitar sound. For the current line up it is also the gift that keeps on giving. As they are not recording new material, a Crossing anniversary tour seems to come around with monotonous regularity, the latest point in the calendar being to celebrate forty (yes forty) years since its release.

It probably also makes business sense as the crowd for the London show at the Assembly Hall was probably double the attendance for their show here just over a year ago, albeit that was as we were tentatively emerging from the pandemic.

There was also a neat symmetry with a 40th anniversary show from Spear of Destiny, given a generous hour long support slot. There was a good overlap of fan base, as you might expect from two bands who emerged from the post-punk scene but by the mid 80s were unafraid to shoot for the mainstream rather than just be played on the John Peel show.

Frontman Kirk Brandon is the sole remaining original member and though he seemed to be struggling with the heat as indeed many in the crowd were, his voice was still strong. However he barely spoke between songs, making them harder for me to get into, as someone who’d never seen them before. A fine band included Robin Goodridge, on loan from Bush, with a refreshingly direct and uncomplicated approach to drumming and a sax player in Clive Osborne.

Songs like ‘Liberty’ and ‘Come Back’ resulted in spontaneous singalongs from their many fans, while the one hit single I really remembered in ‘Never Take Me Alive’ was much more stripped back with less going on musically. ‘World Service’ saw the band rock out, ponytailed Adrian Portas in particular on his low suing Gibson guitar, and a set which quietly grew on me ended with its finest moment, ‘Mickey’, a moving story song of a lad who followed his ancestors footsteps into war, with the crowd taking over the ‘I Wanna Go Home’ chant.

After a very quick turnaround Big Country opened with ‘1000 Stars’, one of the less in your face songs from the album but showing off neat guitar interplay between founder member (and earthy wit) Bruce Watson and son Jamie. However this was not to be one of those occasions where an album was played in sequence, as they then slipped in ‘Look Away’, which after all reached their highest charting single position of all, before returning to the debut with ‘Close Action’, ‘Lost Patrol’ with the crowd singing ‘we save no souls’ and ‘The Storm’. Singer Simon Hough, who seems to have grown in stage confidence over the years, showed an extra string to his bow as his acoustic guitar really drove the latter song along.

Bruce mentioned that the sophomore album ‘Steeltown’ would be next to get this treatment (again) but this time just a couple of tasters were aired. One of my all time favourites ‘Just a Shadow’ was one of a few songs where the band sounded a touch ragged and disjointed, though Bruce’s closing solo atoned, and the title track which began in almost funky style and proved a slow burner. The surprise of the set was the mellow ‘Ships’, extended by a fine long country rock esque solo from Bruce.

It was back to ‘The Crossing’ and after the epic ‘Porrohman’ the pace began to pick up with ‘Harvest Home’ and the first outbreaks of pogoing in the audience before a mass sing-along to ‘Chance’. After initially lulling people into a false sense of security with a different intro they played ‘In a Big Country’ and an ever bigger knot of people were throwing themselves around in a style that seems to have died out at other bands gigs. This was all very predictable but great fun nevertheless as the danceable ‘Wonderland’ led straight into ‘Fields of Fire’ to even more jumping about (and a snatch of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’), and who indeed could resist bouncing to that classic?

There was a solitary encore in ‘Inwards’, not as spectacular perhaps as what had gone before, but a perfect example of ‘The Crossing’ sound that was so original, indeed unique at the time. Quite rightly, the other remaining original member, Mark Brzezicki emerged from his huge drum kit to thank the ever-missed Stuart Adamson for writing these songs, that have stood the test of time and which in the hands of the current version of the band always make for an enjoyable night out.

Review and Photos by Andy Nathan

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