Punk is dead....but we're still dying

My sister reminded recently that I used to have this slogan on my bedroom door when I was a kid. It's taken from the label on Stiff Little Finger's Alternative Ulster 7" single.

I went to see Stiff little Fingers last night. Not the first time. I think its probably the third or fourth time. I didn't get to see them back in the day, though.

My friend is mate's with the bass player Ali McMordie, who is one of the two original members in the current line-up (the other being lead singer and guitarist Jake Burns), so he kindly gets me on the guest list when they're in town.

I was 11 in 1978 when I got into new wave and punk music. I remember buying the first edition of Smash Hits whilst still at Primary School. That year it featured bands like Blondie, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, the Jam, and the Police, as well as some of the punk bands like Sham 69 and the Buzzcocks.

I remember around that time being played X-Ray Spex's Oh Bondage! Up Yours at a family friend's house, and knowing immediately that it was anti-something, maybe anti-everything, and that I liked it.

I must have expressed my interest in this music to my older cousin Richard, 'cos for the next year or so he proceeded to regularly and generously feed me lovingly-made compilation tapes containing a wide range of punk and Oi bands. These 13 or so tapes, unfortunately long-gone, formed the basis of my love of punk and inspired me to independently explore those bands that I particularly liked, such as the Adverts, The Outcasts and The Stranglers.

I was too young and not hard enough to be a punk. But that didn't stop me trying. I could upset and convince adults with my attempts at punkness - I remember not being allowed into my mate's house 'cos his mum was so offended by my spikey hair, my DMs, skin-tight jeans with turn-ups, and God Save The Queen t-shirt - but my punk-peers were less convinced - I was once spat at in Woolworths in Guildford, and often jeered at by other more punk-by-nature boys at school for my attempts to be one of them.

Okay, I didn't know much about Crass, but I knew I genuinely liked some pretty crass stuff (with a small 'c') like Cockney Rejects and the Angelic Upstarts, so I lived with it.

I had to wait until I was 15, to see my first punk band though. The Stranglers, had nearly topped the charts with Golden Brown, and were basically mainstream by the time I saw them at the Civic Hall, Guildford in 1982. But they still played with the contempt and vileness that you would expect of any proper punk band.

Stiff Little Fingers were another one of my favourite punk bands. I was gutted 'cos my parents wouldn't let me go to the Civic Hall the year they played there to promote the Nobody's Heroes album. My cousin went and bought me the tour poster though, so I proudly blue-tacked over my bed.

Last night they played the Forum and they sounded as punk rock as ever. The audience as you'd expect comprised mostly of 40-50 year old males; boys slightly older than me, that probably would have spit at me back in the day. But tonight I am here and I belong here. I have the punk record collection and knowledge of the genre to easily qualify. I am as passionate and savvy about punk and S.L.F. as the best of them, basically, finally, as punk rock as them. Even as hard as them. Or rather as soft as most of them. A parent too, like most of them.

There were spine-tingling moments all the way through the set, and Jake Burns's voice sounds stronger than ever. Tin Soldiers sounded bigger and more anthemic than ever. Barbed Wire Love, which had a Forumful of old punks singing the 50s doo-wop middle-8, demonstrated why Inflammable Material stood out as such a punk classic. They encored with both Johnny Was, and Alternative Ulster, the former as drawn-out, dynamic, passionate and uplifting as I could ever hope for.

I still listen to this stuff, see. So hearing Wasted Life and Suspect Device doesn't feel nostalgic. It feels like the present to me.

I've been blogging about the blues and how I don't get it. Well, this is why. I get this. I get this energy. This passion. The immediacy of this. There was nothing 'Blues' about tonight. Or about the people present. Sure, we can all admit to liking Led Zeppelin now, but we will always be punk at heart. There's some argy-bargy at the front but the aggression and anger has long gone. The spitting, too. Good performance, musicianship and competence is now appreciated, admittedly. Virtuosity, however, is not an issue. Jake Burns's succint solos were artful in their brevity and beautifully adequate. To the point, like most of their songs.

I get introduced to Ali at the after-show party and while I could have said "I used to have a poster of you and Stiff Little Fingers on my bedroom wall", and asked loads of interesting questions about being a 'mature' musician and stuff; instead I just said "excellent gig, man" and stood listening to his conversation with my mate and examining his now mature facial features like he was an old school friend that I hadn't seen in 27 years.

By 12 o'clock I'd had enough crap lager - just a couple of pints of that stuff is enough. So I called it a night. A great night.