The opening notes to ‘Go For It’ ring out the crowd starts to sing along to this instrumental song and the last stragglers rush in from the bar. Minutes later Stiff Little Fingers take to the stageopening with ‘(It’s a) Long Way To Paradise (From Here)’ whilst at the front of the stage the crowd go wild, and continue to do so for the first three songs which are played without a break. The sound quality is unbelievable and the bands enthusiasm and energy is amazing, despite lead singer Jake Burns having turned 50 two weeks ago. This band have been going for 30 years and its obvious to see, they know the songs inside out and pick a set which includes all of the crowd pleasers and the songs they enjoy the most.
Part way through the set they pause for Jake to tell us about when The Specials used to play the next song ‘Doesn’t Make It Alright’ and people used to tell them it was ‘great they played that Stiff Little Fingers cover’ (it was The Specials originally for those who don’t know). The crowd then breaks down into a strange mixture of pogoing and skanking for different parts of the song, the band look as if they love it. ‘Barbed Wire Love’ also provides a great moment when the slow bridge of the song sees the crowd stop jumping around and raise their lighters in the air and start waving their arms, moving seamlessly to going wild when the song kicks back in again.
The first part of the set comes to a close and the band leaves the stage to cries of ‘Oh lay, Oh lay, Oh lay, Fingers, Fingers’. They return and engage in the mammoth ‘Johnny Was’ with the whole room singing.Having now seen this band for the last three years running its obvious why they are still going and that they are most defiantly ‘Still Burning’!
