The show had just started when the text message came in from a singer/songwriter friend: “Drinking game: everytime Billy Bragg expresses a political opinion, do a shot.” This elicited a solid chuckle from the group of friends I was sitting with at Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre watching Billy Bragg on stage. We were about three songs into the set and it’s fair to say that if we’d taken him up on the game we’d all have been blitzed already.
Billy Bragg has never shied away from politics: it’s as essential to his nature as the guitar that he plays on stage. “Mixing pop and politics / he asks me what the use is” he wrote years ago in one of his most enduring songs. There may be no figure in modern popular music who’s demonstrated exactly what the use is than Bragg whose spent his entire career championing the underdog.
With his recently released Tooth & Nail album, Bragg has embarked on his most extensive tour in years. After playing a handful of dates at South by Southwest he’s heading across Canada and into the United States covering territory the well traveled troubadour hasn’t seen in ages. The Vancouver show was one of the earliest stops of the tour, and it was an opportunity to see a performer I hadn’t seen since the late 90s.
Australia’s Kim Churchill opened the show with a short set that saw the singer-songwriter exploring his guitar’s effects pedals as much as his own voice. Churchill sang the praises of his touring partner, describing him as a guy who’s “…got a real skill at making you feel happy. Making you feel empowered.” Catch Churchill live if you get a chance: I’ll be sure to if he gets back to Vancouver.After a short break, Bragg took the stage looking much as he ever has, the beard no longer new but useful “for covering a multitude of chins” in the singer’s own words. “Well,” he started, “I’ve had a curry. I’ve had a shower. I’ve had a shit. It’s Friday night. Let’s do this.”
For Bragg fans, that type of on stage banter is par for the course and it’s good to see that it hasn’t gone away. As a live performer, it’s one of the things that makes Bragg engaging: that, and those political opinions of course. The almost two hours of music that followed mixed solid songwriting with a great band and that witty banter to produce a fine night of entertainment.
Not content to simply rest on his laurels or to solely plug his fine new album Tooth & Nail, Bragg’s set drew on material that spanned his entire career. Early songs included The Space Race is Over from William Bloke, Do Unto Others from Tooth and Nail and Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key and All You Fascists from the Mermaid Avenue Sessions.
The latter served as an introduction to one of the night’s most political moments–Bragg spoke of the British National Party’s success in winning seats in his local council elections. When the party described itself as “not a racist party, but a fascist party” Bragg’s response was passionate: “neither me, nor Woody Guthrie make any distinction between the two.” This drew a round of thunderous applause from the Vancouver crowd–pretty clearly demonstrating that mixing pop and politics can be a useful thing after all.Bragg’s band took a mid-set break for what turned out to be a bit of a trip down memory lane, with the artist alone on stage performing some of his classic earlier songs: Milkman of Human Kindness, To Have and Have Not and Levi Stubbs Tears. During each of these songs Bragg paused for entire chorus’ while the audience gladly took over. This is the kind of sing along that only the most passionately devoted fans can make happen.
The band rejoined the stage while Bragg sang Tooth & Nail’s Goodbye Goodbye and the set continued with My Flying Saucer, Swallow my Pride, Valentine’s Day is Over and Sexuality providing an upbeat rollicking finish to the show’s regular proceedings.
A three song encore followed with the beautifully understated Tank Park Salute serving as a highlight and showcasing one of the finest songwriting talents of the post-Bob Dylan era.It would taken an article longer than this one to praise the virtues of Bragg’s stage presence and how enjoyable it makes the man to watch live. Throughout the night songs were interspersed with tales of meeting the Queen with his mother (“In my line of work there’s not a lot of things you can do to impress your mom. Sadly, singing little ditties on a Friday in Vancouver doesn’t do it,”) playing Folk Fest workshops with Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, how nice a guy Johnny Marr is, how American America is, and bumping into Ramblin; Jack Elliott in a guitar shop a week earlier. Bragg’s a man who’s been everywhere, and he loves to share his stories.
The man and his band sound as fine as he did years ago too: the last time I saw Bragg live was on the Mermaid Avenue tour, and he shows no signs of being 15 years older. His voice is strong and clear, and the sharp mind that shares those political opinions remains as insightful as ever. Tooth & Nail is as fine a collection of songs as Bragg has released to date, and the tour is a welcome way to experience those songs live.
The night ended with what may be Bragg’s most insightful, most quotable and most important observation of the night. Before launching into the jangle guitar chorus of Waiting for the Great Leap Forward—quite possibly the only song to hit the billboard charts that mentions Dr. Robert Oppenheimer (along with JFK, Che Guevara and Raoul & Fidel Castro)—Bragg summed up his life’s political experience with this thought:
“I’ve come to feel that the enemy of all of us is not capitalism, it’s not conservatism, it’s cynicism.”
With that, one of our generation’s greatest and most honest troubadors launched into a song that was written more than 20 years ago but remains as current today as it was then–he may have swapped Hugo Chavez’s name for Che Guevara’s but the song, as they say, remains the same. While we’re all still waiting for the great leap forwards, Bragg is on stage encouraging audiences to start their own revolution and cut out the middle man, and doing it as well as he ever has.
Billy Bragg’s North American tour continues through April and into May before he returns to the UK for more dates. Complete tour dates are available on his web site. His new album Tooth & Nail can be purchased on iTunes at Bragg’s site or buy it at a gig because, in the artist’s words, “No one’s ever sold an autographed Billy Bragg MP3 on eBay!”
