The Streets hotly anticipated appearance at Homelands 2003 seemed like the natural environment for the 2002 Mercury Music Prize Nominees to strut their stuff, but even an audience of the already-converted failed to get the best from this much-hyped band.
The Streets, fronted by charismatic "urban poet" Mike Skinner and fellow vocalist, Kevin Mark Trail, arrived onstage to greet a very excited early evening crowd; Skinner getting them all shouting "the F-word" at top volume especially for the Radio 1 listeners. "Nah, nah, but seriously," Skinner asked the crowd later, "who’s on drugs?" The response was overwhelming. This was a band playing to their natural allies.
The music was the real problem. It was obvious that much of the crowd would have been perfectly happy to have just sat watching Skinner chat for an hour, but that is not the reason we go to see live bands. "Give Me My Lighter Back", a favourite B-side, was a personal highlight, albeit the only tune that seemed to successfully translate live. The rest of the set was mostly made up of tracks from Original Pirate Material. "Too Much Brandy" was flat, Skinner and Trail seemingly lacking flow and regularly out of synch, while "Don’t Mug Yourself" was a little better, although really only a competent rendition of the album version, as were many of the other tracks played.
Having been huge fans of the album, this was a set we'd been particularly looking forward to, but the music simply failed to grab us and we did not stay to see the end. So why was the performance so flat then, we ask ourselves? The crowd interaction was there, the audience were well up for a bit of it; what went wrong? Maybe it's because The Streets are more of a concept than a band, as their disappointing live sound attests.
review by Lynsey Haire / Robin Warren photos by Neil Greenway
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