I Hate People
You have to love the Anti Nowhere League, few bands from the second or third wave of punk have retained the notoriety that they have, admittedly this is due in part to Metallica covering the truly obnoxious 'So What' but the fact remains that when they first emerged they were amusing, raw and totally in your face and produced a storming album in the shape of 'We Are... The League'. Since then they have released sporadic albums, made some pretty disastrous career decisions, tried their hand (unsuccessfully) at going more mainstream, splitting up, getting back together and finally deciding that the original formula was the winner after all!
Tonight we find them in the Academy 3 in front of a healthy crowd (but far from capacity) that varies in age from 17 to 60! Singer Animal looks pretty much the same as he did twenty odd years ago and is instantly recognisable as he takes the stage and the band launch into their signature tune 'We Are the League'. The set list is nicely mixed with old songs interspersed with later material and by & large it's hard to distinguish between the two but unsurprisingly the biggest cheers come when the oldies are announced. 'Let's Break the Law', 'Animal', 'Woman' and 'Streets of London' all go down a storm and of course they have to play the lyrically obnoxious 'So What', which found them a whole new audience following the Metallica cover version. The best of this bunch though is 'For You', which when originally released featured much slicker production and that also comes across in the live version. The later songs such as 'Dead Heroes', 'Medication' are OK and fit in well enough with the pick of the bunch being 'Mother You're a Liar' but the fact that they fit in also means that they sound dated.
The problem with ANL is that the songs were always fairly simple and in the live environment they tend to sound a little empty. The musicianship is adequate but hardly outstanding and at times their limits as a band are horribly exposed. I really want to like them more than I find myself doing, they do their best but the simple fact is that of their contemporaries there are bands like SLF and Peter & the Test Tube Babies that had better material and can still cut it better than ANL on the live scene. They finish with 'Fuck Around the Clock' and 'Long Live Punk', but by this point I'm thinking that if this is the state of punk today then it's time that it died once and for all. Fortunately it's being brought up to date elsewhere in fine style & ANL need to move on if they're going to survive or retain any kind of relevance to anyone under 30.