I would walk 500 miles....

Ever been at a show where you find yourself singing along at the top of your lungs and you're not even drunk?

That was me at The Proclaimers show last Friday, along with pretty well everyone else in there, including some of the staff.

Sure the lads are not the skinny rosy cheeked neo-folk/punk/blue eyed soul/pub rockers that used to nearly die of exhaustion on stage anymore, but they have their act down pat, with a very tight band, and true to the recordings arrangements. They mixed up the new and the old, singing favourites like Letter from America, 500 Miles, Cap In Hand and the like, but also throwing in some fine contemporary work.

Of course it was the audience that struck me when I finally got in the door. The security on the outside was like frickin' Heathrow, which was made so laughable once you got in and saw who was there. I wonder how many people had their knitting needles confiscated at the door? I don't think The Who were talking about this generation, not anymore, anyhow.

Yep, I was pretty well totally immersed in my own demographic.

The sound was very reminiscent of The Committments - white boy, blue eyed soul. The newer material definitely leans that way. But the social conscience that was most obvious in Cap in Hand ("and I don't understand why we let someone else rule our, land, cap in hand...") is still there in songs like New Religion, with a lyric like this:

"Evidence of a new religion
Meeting a human need
fertiliser for the brain
Feeding the weakest seeds."

Attacking the crap we get from the modern media and entertainment business. This was a pretty cool song.

They take a wicked shot at the rockers who are now lining up for knighthood in the UK, I mean, how can't Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney respond to this:

In Recognition of your 100 million album sales
In Recognition of your popularity
You take your gaudy prize from people you said you despise
You wear your self-respect upon your bended knees.

In spite of all your claims
It looks like you’re just the same
As every other clown, who likes put the crown
Before or after their names.

Even the title song from their new album, called "Life with You", has an edge to it that keeps it from being sappy. The words are, but the song isn't.

Mojo magazine described the brothers' stage presence as having the "tenacity of two Jack Russels on rabbit duty". I can see that.

I'll finish with the best snippet of lyric from their new album, from the song "The Long Haul"

"I miss the days
When the threat to our position
Didn't come from some religion
But from godless Communism"

Hard to argue with that one.