If in 2004 you were young, scratching by but determined to live it up beyond your means, the soundtrack to your life was The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free. Mike Skinner’s classic second album defined the British working class noughties era so specifically that its references to the Yellow Pages, using the cash machine and paying for pints with spare change now seem like a period piece. Within seconds of this full album run-through in Shepherd’s Bush, Skinner leaned against a large delipidated bus shelter to sing-speak about taking a DVD back to the video shop.
But Skinner’s wry everyman geezer-poetry always contained real depth, and A Grand Don’t Come for Free still sounds like a masterpiece of storytelling. Its fabled concept – at the outset Skinner loses the titular £1,000 only to eventually find it down the back of the TV – gave Skinner the license to dissect the hopes and heartbreaks of 20-something life, skint and partying with torn loyalties between your mates and your girl, via a roving backdrop of the betting shop, the iffy club, the Ibiza getaway and a flat full of discarded cans of Tennant’s Super.
The onstage re-enactment was fantastic. With the best sounding band Skinner has ever had, the music was boldly recreated – “Blinded by the Lights”, pop’s most realistic depiction of the sketchier side of clubbing, has never throbbed quite so menacingly – while out-front Skinner staged a semi-theatrical performance as the tale unfolded, with the help of superb, characterful singers Roo Savill and Kevin Mark Trail. The riotous knees-up of “Fit But You Know It” aside, the album’s lower key music – the sweet piano motif of “Wouldn’t Have it Any Other Way,” the plaintive it’ll-be-OK-mate ballad “Dry Your Eyes” – suited such an approach.
I’m of a mind that Skinner can at times overdo the rabble rousing in concert at the expense of performance, so it was refreshing to see him give the songs the treatment they deserved: he was more focused than in years, not saying a word to the crowd and delivering every line with a mix of deadpan and sincerity. The bus shelter, recreated from the original album cover, was used cleverly as a prop: he drew X-Files-related graffiti in a nod to his newly found interest in UFOs (“The Truth is out There” alongside an alien and spaceship); for new young love piano ballad “Could Well Be In”, Skinner sat inside with Savill, who played the album’s love interest Simone brilliantly; Savill brought real sass to their domestic argument during “Get Out of My House”. For “Dry Your Eyes”, Skinner sang from underneath a lamppost, before walking the stage head bowed, kicking the floor like a lovelorn teenager. It was very affecting; the song has lost none of its poignant charm.
Epic closer “Empty Cans”, with its emotional uplifting finale, saw Skinner shake off self-pity, find the money (to huge cheers) and resolve to a more positive, trusting outlook. After a full bow, an altogether lairier second set of greatest hits followed; within seconds of “Turn the Page” Skinner was in the front row; by the end of second track, the lockdown freedom banger “Who’s Got the Bag”, he was in the middle of the mosh pit; by closer “Take Me As I Am” he was crowed surfing holding a blown up condom he’d been handed in the crowd (“a symbol that we must keep each other safe”). But it was the main set that will live in the memory.
The Streets’ UK tour continues from 26 June
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