The Green Goblin Blog

Back in March when the email flyer from The Fez came through about The Jam playing there I didn't feel too bothered. Luckily I forwarded the information to Sue who had a completely different opinion and within the hour I had booked tickets. And now nearly 3 months later I'm glad I did. The gig was great and I really enjoyed singing along to songs I'd grown up with.

The Jam were one of those bands I enjoyed musically but not culturally - they flew the Mod colours and I wore denim so it was never really going to work. Of course, by the time I was 18 they had decided to split so I went for the cop-out of the "best of" with an after-the-fact purchase of Snap! when I was at University.

As you can see, the lead singer is thankfully not Paul Weller. Russell Hastings does a faithful rendition of the necessary vocals and guitar	Bruce Foxton on bass is backed up by David Moore on guitar and keyboards. Couldn't get any decent shots of Rick Buckler with this tiny camera.

The set listing seems to reflect a preference for the old stuff rather than the songs they brought out in the year or two before the split and The Style Council (a.k.a "the crap stuff").

From 1977 and the "In The City" and "This Is The Modern World" albums:

• In The City
• Life From A Window
• Modern World
• News of the World

From 1978 and "All Mod Cons"

• To Be Someone (Didn't We Have a Nice Time)
• David Watts
• 'A' Bomb in Wardour Street
• Down in the Tube Station at Midnight

From 1979 and "Setting Sons"

• Little Boy Soldiers (Sue thinks they played this)
• Smithers-Jones
• The Eton Rifles
• When You're Young

From 1980 and "Sound Affects"

• Pretty Green
• Start!
• That's Entertainment
• Going Underground

From 1982 and "The Gift"

• Town Called Malice
• The Gift

Extras

• We've Only Started
• So Sad About Us (by Pete Townsend, The Who)

So no "Funeral Pyre", "Absolute Beginners", "Beat Surrender" or "The Bitterest Pill". No great loss as I never liked them. Their omission is surprising from a success point of view, though - the records were #4, #4, #1 and #2 respectively in the UK charts at the time (1981/82) so I would have expected The Jam to play them.

# posted by John Breakwell @ 12:03 AM