Squeeze

“We were gonna play next door, but we heard there's a comedian in the house." Chris Difford's tongue in cheek comment during Squeeze’s excellent performance on Saturday night reflects the vagaries of fame in the world of popular culture, with the majority of those exiting North Greenwich tube station coming to the main arena to see one of Micky Flanagan's run of 12 night shows in the main O2 venue.

The worlds of Micky Flanagan and Squeeze are not far apart, in either a literal or metaphorical sense; Flanagan being renowned as an observational, working class comic par excellence, while Squeeze have always had the ability in their songs to tell closely observed vignettes from everyday life – what Smash Hits at one time called “three minute Plays for Today.” So, two quintessential working class acts from different parts of London, each with a sense of place and pride in their communities, were a stone’s throw apart from each other on the same evening.

Earlier on, support had come in the form of Nine Below Zero (NBZ). Formed in the 1970s, this now 8 piece English blues band have achieved something like cult status nowadays.Original members, Dennis Greaves (lead vocal and guitar) and Mark Feltham (harmonica and vocals) have now been augmented by the likes of Charlie Austin who takes on most of the singing duties. NBZ and Glenn Tilbrook have previously collaborated on the album, The Co-operative, so they have a long history together, and their set included a song which Dennis Greaves said he’d co-written with Glenn Tilbrook on Blackheath station.
If the end of NBZ’s set, which included what felt like some rather unnecessary extended solos for each of the band’s participants, they provided a solid, feel good set to warm up the crowd for the main event.
Squeeze were playing on Saturday on their Join the Dots tour, following on from their Cradle to the Grave tour in 2015, the album of the same name being their first for 17 years. The latter had its own comedic references, being an upbeat, nostalgic collection of songs about growing up in London in the Sixties and Seventies, full of sharp observations of family life, school, and first love, which featured in the BBC2 Peter Kay sitcom of the same name.

Squeeze benefitted from the more intimate nature of the purpose built Indigo venue, rather than the barn that is the main O2 arena, the latter barely fit for purpose with its poor acoustics for larger touring acts, let alone for a single stand-up comedian. The band kicked off with Please Be Upstanding - the new single from the latest album - followed closely by the ageless Pulling muscles (from the shell). Their ability to intersperse newer songs such as A&E and Albatross with older material meant the set moved along at a good pace, and whilst Rough Ride with its pithy social commentary - "Austerity: is that all you have to give to me?" - is perhaps less successful with its mix of opera singers and the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS and children’s choirs as backing to the band proving somewhat overblown, it barely matters as the hits keep on coming: Hourglass, Annie Get Your Gun, Cool for Cats, Another Nail in My Heart, Take me I'm yours, Goodbye Girl, Labelled with love, Slap and Tickle – classics all.

In truth, their better recent songs share the strengths of their greatest material in that they’re meditations and reminiscences on people and relationships, the wistful Departure Lounge a tale of ageing - the old boys in the song who “can feel the gravity calling from beneath us”, whilst the evocative Patchouli, with some great harpsichord, harkens back to a time “when the skies went dark/in Maryon Wilson Park.”

Current members of Squeeze, aside from Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford, include Simon Hanson, Stephen Large, Steve Smith and Yolanda Charles. With a back catalogue of hits as impressive as theirs, Squeeze were highly unlikely to disappoint, but the sound of the band was particularly impressive on the night, the dual drumming of Simon Hanson and Steve Smith adding heft to the numbers, whilst Yolanda Charles added excellent backing vocals. It’s also easy to forget what a brilliant, lightning quick guitar player Tilbrook is, and you could see that he particularly enjoyed rocking out on some of the numbers.

On leaving the venue someone was overheard to say that unlike so many of their peers, Squeeze’s sound had barely deteriorated in the years since the height of their fame in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of this is obviously down to the fact that Glenn Tilbrook has always sung in a mid-range and therefore hasn’t experienced the deterioration in his vocal performance so often the case with singers from the same era. The unique blend of voices have always given Squeeze their unique flavour, Tilbrook higher and sweeter, with Difford low and monotone, always singing one octave apart. And in Tempted and Up the Junction it’s worth remembering that the band have recorded two of the all-time greatest songs in the popular music canon.

And every time you thought they’d already played every song you’d heard of theirs of note, the band would return with another famous tune, encores including the wonderful Is That Love? and Black Coffee in Bed.