By Nick Stark
IF THERE is one band whose output captures the late 70s in London for this reviewer at least, it’s Squeeze. I still remember quite vividly one of my muso friends in the fifth form at my London secondary school approaching me excitedly in 1977 clutching an LP bearing an oiled, muscle-bound figure on the cover with the words ‘Squeeze’ covering the he-man’s visage. That album immediately became part of our daily playlist, as did so many of the songs the Deptford band produced over the next couple of years. A couple of their classic tunes were an essential part of my late teen soundtrack– who can forget Take Me I’m Yours, Up The Junction, Cool for Cats or Tempted?
Those were heady times to be a music-loving teen in London. The explosion of punk was followed by a rich river of remarkable talent which flowed in full spate through the capital for several glorious years, where each month seemingly brought a new fashion, a new band, a new way of posing down the pub so to speak. But something set Squeeze apart, it was the quality of their songwriting, their wit and insight, the artful, cheeky-happy wordplay of Chris Difford’s lyrics and the memorable hooks of Glenn Tilbrook’s melodies. There’s a good reason the UK press dubbed them “The New Lennon and McCartney”.
So it was great to see the band making a rare appearance in these parts for a one-night only show at the Orpheum in downtown on Friday, September 13th – lucky for us. The audience was mostly my generation – fiftysomethings who know a good tune when they hear it and knew they might not be seeing the band play in these parts again for a long time – if ever.
The band looked older than we might have remembered but still natty in their suits and energetic in their delivery, opening with with Footprints, Big Beng and Hourglass before Tilbrook brought the audience to their feet with the opening lines from Pulling Mussels from the Shell, followed by Up the Junction. The set was an interesting blend of all the band’s hits – Annie Get Your Gun, Cool For Cats, Slap and Tickle, Tempted, Another Nail In My Heart, and so on, with some lesser-known numbers that showcased the fecundity and range of the Difford/Tilbrook canon. Songs like The Day I Get Home, Please Be Upstanding and King George Street if anything sound better now than when they were first released.
The musicianship from the band’s founders and the rest of the band was as good as you would expect from folks who have been plying their trade for decades, and the set managed to provide both a walk down memory lane and a reminder that this band, perhaps unfairly considered one of the lesser lights of a rich musical chapter in British history, have produced a copious and intelligent output of really great songs. Squueze wound up the set with an encore of Take Me I’m Yours, Is That Love and Black Coffee in Bed. The audience went home very happy indeed. And I was delighted to be one of them.
