John Wesley Harding & the Radical Gentlemen & The Soft Boys

March 29, 2001

St. Andrew's Hall

Detroit, MI

I recently had the pleasure of witnessing the great double bill of John Wesley Harding & the Radical Gentlemen and the original, reunited Soft Boys at Detroit’s St. Andrew’s Hall. My buddy William and I had purchased tickets way before thinking that the Soft Boys first tour in 20 years would likely be a big draw for obsessed music freaks, but when we arrived at St. Andrew’s we saw that we were mistaken. Only a small group of people were waiting outside. They opened the doors late (a tradition at St. Andrew’s) and the small but enthusiastic crowd filed inside. St. Andrew’s is an old church and is a nice place to see a show especially if it isn’t too crowded. The room filled up a little as showtime grew closer, but we were able to have plenty of breathing space all night.

Before long Gangster Folkie, John Wesley Harding and his latest band, the Radical Gentlemen took the stage. They played an energetic set the leaned more heavily on the electric pop material of Harding’s latest excellent album, The Confessions of St. Ace, than on his earlier more acoustic material. Harding took the role of front man, rarely even picking up his guitar. His band was tight and fun to watch. Highlights of the set included "Humble Bee", "Goth Girl", "Burn" and " Our Lady of the Highway". After one encore the band left to make way for the Soft Boys, but I was happy for their enjoyable opening set.

Before long the Soft Boys came on stage and started right in too a loud rocking set. As I watched it seemed very strange to think that I was actually witnessing a Soft Boys concert with the original members. The band led by Robyn Hitchcock and Kimberley Rew started out in the late seventies in Cambridge, England. They never really achieved much success in their few years of existence, but since they broke up their legend has grown. Matador records recently re-released their opus, Underwater Moonlight complete with an extra disc of bonus material. For some reason all the right things came together at the right time and a short US tour to promote the album was put together. The band looked older, but the music was surprisingly tight and fresh for a band that hasn’t really played together in 20 years. They stuck largely to material from "Underwater Moonlight" with a few other Soft Boys’ classics thrown in with a couple of Hitchcock solo tunes. Highlights included "I Want to Destroy You", "Underwater Moonlight" and "I’m Insanely Jealous of You". The most striking thing about the Soft Boys is still the guitar interplay between Hitchcock and Rew. Although they have very different styles of playing (Hitchcock is more angular and Rew is more fluid) their playing seems to mesh into something greater than the sum of its parts.