Urban beat poets, The Streets, returned for a second top billing at We Love…Homelands in 2005. With another album, 2004’s A Grand Don’t Come For Free, under their belts since Skinner and Co. last headlined the event in 2003, The Streets have proved they do have the creative stamina to be more than just a novelty fad, but I was still unconvinced about their abilities to perform musically live.
I was not a particular fan of their well-received 2003 set, which I felt was more about Mike Skinner being Mike Skinner than live music, so I approached this year’s headline set unsure as to why I was even bothering. However, I was to be very pleasantly surprised. I was impressed by the improvement in their stage presence and the set was very entertaining. Mike Skinner teased the crowd about their abilities to last out the whole night between songs from both the new album and 2002’s Original Pirate Material, whipping the crowd into a defiant partying frenzy.
Sound was not one of this set’s strong points, but it is testament to this band’s performance skills that they were able to entertain their elated audience as they did, feeding brandy to scantily clad girls in the front row, while a small camera on the bottle showed the desperate groupies guzzling expressions to the rest of the crowd on large screens.
The band whipped through hits like Fit But You Know It, Blinded By The Light and Don’t Mug Yourself, before stopping for a mid-set rest on a sofa in the middle of the stage, leaving the crowd to watch The Irony of It All video on a large screen suspended above them. I was surprised by my own change in attitude, as what I had previously disliked about the band – their reliance on the Mike Skinner persona to drive the show – was what I particularly enjoyed this time. While I was far from blown away, musically speaking, this live set was competent and really good fun.
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