Pop and rock This article is more than 4 years oldReviewSqueeze review – British pop gold that won't slow down
This article is more than 4 years oldSage, Gateshead
Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook may be celebrating 45 years together, but their catalogue of stone-cold classics is still far from up the junction
‘This year, Chris [Difford] and Glenn [Tilbrook] celebrate 45 years together,” says the pre-gig announcer, making the Squeeze songwriters sound like an old married couple. There are certainly parallels. They met in Blackheath in 1973, after Tilbrook answered an advert for a guitarist in a “recording and touring band: influences the Kinks, Lou Reed and Glenn Miller”. This unlikely combo turned out to be an imaginary group that Difford had dreamed up in his bedroom. But once his lyric were paired with Tilbrook’s tunes, their band struck pop gold. There have been ruptures and reconciliations since, and it was decades ago that they took up residency in the top 20 and 1981’s East Side Story saw them talked about as the natural heirs to John Lennon and Paul McCartney. However, Squeeze’s 2015 song Cradle to the Grave, the theme tune to Danny Baker’s sitcom, explains the secret of their longevity. Tilbrook sings about not “being a slave” to past mistakes, and of defiantly fighting on: “I won’t go ’til I’m ready.” His band may be a much-loved institution rather than afforded the national treasure status granted the Kinks or Madness, but the vast Squeeze songbook documents a changing Britain as effectively as any historical drama.
1985’s King George Street, among the lesser-played songs that, according to Tilbrook, deserve another airing, mentions council estates, “from before they sold them off”. Lately, Squeeze have become more political. Their merch stall donates to food banks and in 2016 Tilbrook spontaneously changed his lyrics on The Andrew Marr Show to rail against “the destruction of the welfare state” under fellow guest David Cameron. That mischievous side surfaces here as well. There are audible gasps among some shockable punters when Tilbrook introduces Mumbo Jumbo as about “being young, punk and full of spunk”. Heaven knows what the more prudish present make of 2017’s Please Be Upstanding, a beautifully sensitive song about erectile dysfunction that includes the line: “Trying to balance in the air, with nothing but a dribble there.”
Otherwise, the Squeeze catalogue is so strong that they can dispense with a stone-cold classic such as Up the Junction – Difford’s timeless tale of a young relationship wrecked by pregnancy, gambling and booze – five songs in. Another indecently early arrival, Pulling Musssels (from the Shell) is illustrated by images of runny ice creams, bags of chips and whelk stalls, lest anyone in the audience is too young to remember the 1970s British holiday.
Where newer songs are brisk, the older ones are amphetamine punk fast. But unlike many bands of similar vintage, Squeeze aren’t ready to slow down. 23 songs pile up in a 105-minute show that flies by. People dance in the aisles during opener Footprints, and a gorgeous Labelled With Love starts the first of several singsongs midway in. By Cool for Cats – from the days when Difford “had a 29 inch waist and people danced on Top of the Pops” – the crowd are on their feet and cheering. The shackles come off, and the hits trundle along like London buses: Is That Love?, Slap and Tickle, Tempted, Another Nail in My Heart, Goodbye Girl and many more. At the end, the two besuited singer-songwriters play fulsome tribute to each other’s character and talent, which feels genuine and touching. Otherwise, in common with many a couple who have been together this long, there’s no need for a word between the pair of them all night.
At Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 21 October (sold out). Then touring.
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