It’s been twenty-five years since the Levellers arrived on the scene, and back then Britain was a very different place. Governed by right-wing ideologue intent on cutting welfare benefits while their party tore itself apart over Europe, the economy was in turmoil following the failure of the institutions of lending and the mold was being broken by the emergence of a new party of popular protest to challenge the status quo. Strange days indeed.
It was a time that gave rise to a wave of British music imbued with a strong dash of radical politics, courtesy of the likes of Billy Bragg and The Men They Couldn’t Hang and of course Brighton’s finest – The Levellers, with their eclectic mix of folk, punk and rock. So is their mix of social conscience and anarchist symbolism still relevant to today’s Britain? On the evidence of Saturday, May 18th’s showing at Scunthorpe Baths Hall that would be a yes – they certainly got the crowd singing along to some stirring anthems on the night – but for the most part this was a night when politics was set aside in favour of dancing.
This was the first show by a major band since The Baths were extensively refurbished (in truth there isn’t much left of the famous venue other than the facade and the name), so it was going to be interesting to see how it performed as an all-standing venue. Openers were Blackburn acoustic guitar duo Bad Cardigan – whose EP Nursery Rhymes is available now and highly recommended – followed by Moulettes. It’s probably fair to say that the audience at Scunthorpe, drawn perhaps more from the punk than the folk end of the spectrum, seemed a little underwhelmed by the arrival on stage of acoustic bass, violin, cello, percussion and that thing on the end that looked like a long stick but which turned out to be a bassoon, but whatever reservations the crowd may have had before they started playing Moulettes blew them away with a spectacular set of folk chamber music that grabbed the audience’s attention immediately and didn’t let go. There were plenty of shouts for more as they left the stage.
Entering to the sound of pipes and drums The Levellers opened their set with “England My Home” and “Beautiful Day” before launching onto a rabble rousing “World Freakshow”. The set covered all the bases with plenty of favourites from their early albums, like “Fifteen Years”, “Far From Home” and “Sell Out”, and tracks from their more recent albums including last year’s Static On The Airwaves.
Unlike the majority of bands where the lead vocalist is the focal point of the whole show The Levellers have a pleasing onstage democracy of presentation – they’re a band where you watch everyone in turn. Stage left is John Sevink, pogoing with the fiddle or striking rock star poses on the drum risers and conducting the audience with the bow as a baton when not playing. He occasionally swapped places with Jeremy Cunningham, whose waist-length red dreads snaked and twisted as he danced with his bass on the right and in the centre the bandanna-ed Simon Friend prowled with his guitar. Of the front line only Mark Chadwick remained stationary, the fulcrum upon which the others pivot. His delivery has plenty of fire and power when needed but it is also a very intimate, full of gestures and signals – and he was chief orchestrator of the crowd who responded to his exhortations to sing and move with enthusiasm.
‘Are we all dancing?’ he shouted at the start of “Sell Out” – the crowd responded with a roar and a glance around the room from the balcony confirmed that everybody was indeed dancing. For “Carry Me” a proper pit formed for a while, then things quieted until at the opening bars of “Cholera Well”, Chadwick bellowed ‘Let’s go really mental!’ – and the crowd obliged.
Highlights included “Forgotten Towns”, which opened with a riveting violin solo from Sevink, and “This Garden”, for which Stephen Boakes, in red stripy trousers, greasepaint and a Noddy Holder influenced hat took the stage for an extended didgeridoo solo, staying around long enough to cause mayhem in the ranks for a couple of songs. A modest hint of politics was introduced with the band’s most recent single – “The Recruiting Sergeant” – which had most of the audience singing along, but it’s the kind of non-committal song that could lie equally well in the mouth of someone from either end of the political spectrum with its chorus of, “Fighting the Afghani”.
The show closed with “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”, described by Chadwick as the maddest song ever written – but it made for a tumultuous finale – a great way to introduce live music back to a famous venue and hopefully it won’t be too long before the promoters, The Gig Cartel, bring more top drawer live music to Scunthorpe Baths.
