Squeeze – 20 October 2010 – live at the Hard Rock Cafe, London

Squeeze in The Absolute Radio Sessions powered by Pepsi Max live in London.

Up the Junction

8 Responses to "Squeeze – 20 October 2010 – live at the Hard Rock Cafe, London"

Gill says:

22 October 2010 at 2:08 pm

Loving You Tonight & Up The Junction are viewable on the Absolute Radio website now: http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/player/Squeeze/8354/Live-music.html

As is a pre-gig interview with Glenn & Chris: http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/player/Squeeze/8351/Interview.html

I wonder who Chris is referring to when he says “there’s one particular guy who’s got posters all over his wall & pictures of us & stuff…”??

Reply
1. packetofthree says:
  
  23 October 2010 at 2:05 pm
  
  I think you’ll find it’s not me!
  
  Reply
Gill says:

22 October 2010 at 2:18 pm

And here are a couple of very favourable reviews:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopreviews/8078727/Squeeze-Hard-Rock-Cafe-London-review.html
http://www.gigjunkie.net/gigs/Absolue-Radio-Sessions-Present…Squeeze/Hard-Rock-Cafe/20-Oct-2010/312278

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1. packetofthree says:
  
  23 October 2010 at 2:08 pm
  
  Squeeze, Hard Rock Café, London, review
  Watching the greatest songwriting partnership of the Eighties is still a sheer pleasure. Rating: * * * *
  
  The question is frequently asked: what’s the point of all these band reunions? Here, the greatest songwriting partnership of the New Wave era rattled through a short, classy and relentlessly uplifting sequence of their biggest hits, in front of just 200 eager and appreciative fans. It was a sheer, unmitigated pleasure. Isn’t that enough?
  Before they reconvened three years ago, Squeeze hadn’t been away long. Unlike so many post-punk groups, they only split up in 1999, when the central songwriting partners, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, finally gave up on each other.
  Over the years, countless members came and went, including founding keyboard player Jools Holland, but Squeeze, contrary to punk diktat, were really all about refreshing pop’s finer traditions, not destroying them. Difford’s wry, witty lyrics, and Tilbrook’s intricate, catchy melodies, harked back to songwriting teams such as Burt Bacharach and Hal David, or Stax’s Isaac Hayes and David Porter, with an added smudge of late-1970s South London grittiness.
  The second song in their set, Black Coffee in Bed, was underpinned by the kind of effortless Southern-soul groove you might find on a vintage Al Green record. Though not quite a vocalist of that calibre, Tilbrook sang beautifully, with commitment and clarity undimmed. When the Hangover Strikes, meanwhile, delved even further back in pop history, with a mordant take on Billie Holiday-style jazzy blues.
  As the hits came thick and fast, heavy drinking seemed to provide a backdrop to them all. Difford has conceded that his alcoholism caused the band’s decline through the Nineties, and its ultimate dissolution. On stage, he cut an amusingly impassive figure, grimacing behind horn-rimmed spectacles, his face only cracking into the ghost of a smile, as the crowd joyously lined up before him to chant along to Squeeze’s signature tune from 1979, Up the Junction.
  That song’s genius was there for all to hear: without a refrain per se, its humorously worded but bitterly sad narrative of an unplanned pregnancy unfurled like a perpetual chorus — so catchy, you just ended up singing along to all of it.
  What a joy it was to revel in Squeeze’s songbook, in the moment: Tempted captured an unfaithful man’s desperate remorse to bittersweet perfection; Difford delivered his bar-room fantasy, Cool For Cats, in an hilarious cryogenic croak; and, at the last, Pulling Mussels From a Shell celebrated the Great British seaside holiday with all the glee of a saucy postcard.
  The classics they didn’t play — Goodbye Girl, etc — will doubtless be rolled out on their hefty tour in the run-up to Christmas. Better still, after a ten-year lay-off, Difford and Tilbrook are back writing together.
  Yes, reunions are a good thing
  
  By Andrew Perry
  
  Reply
Snipturn says:

28 October 2010 at 10:21 am

Just added a video from the evening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8WkSx7i0bQ

Snip

Reply
1. packetofthree says:
  
  28 October 2010 at 8:29 pm
  
  Nice!
  
  Reply
2. Terri says:
  
  30 October 2010 at 4:31 am
  
  Fabulous, Snip, thanks so much!!!
  
  Reply
3. packetofthree says:
  
  4 November 2010 at 10:29 am
  
  And I’ve just added your multi-cam video of Up the Junction to the post – looks like a triumph!
  
  Reply

Squeeze – 20 October 2010 – live at the Hard Rock Cafe, London

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