Sleaford Mods cook up a storm at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom
Nottingham duo Sleaford Mods bring their live show to Glasgow’s iconic Barrowlands. Their style, classed as electronic punk for the working class combines a beatbox type rhythm to vocalist Jason Williamson’s urban rap-style lyrics, often about working-class, British culture, politics and being a jobseeker!
Williamson, hailing from Lincolnshire, was a session musician and met colleague Andrew Fearne who was a DJ at a club in Nottingham, playing his own music. Williamson suggested they collaborate with Fearne’s music and his lyrics, combining the electronic beat with Williamson’s style, known as sprechgesang, a term for a crossover of singing and speaking, more related to the operatic style.
The 20 song setlist went down well with the ever-increasing crowd at the Barrowlands, favourites such as Subtraction, Giddy on the Ciggies, TCR, From Rags to Richards had the crowd bopping along. BHS raised a bigger cheer, a great tune. Dregs and Gallows Hill closed the first set before a short interval. Coming back on to Fizzy then crowd favorite Jobseeker, the band were on form and the audience were lapping it up.
A few more tunes, Tied Up In Nottz, Tarantula Deadly Cargo and Tweet Tweet Tweet closed the evening. Infectious music by Fearne, a kind of mellowed out drum and bass perhaps? Coupled with the fabulous words of Williamson, delivered with a style, not unlike John Cooper Clarke or Shaun Ryder, and a hint of urban poetry a la Ian Dury and this was a great evening. Sleaford Mods are a band well worth seeing life.
