Squeeze need no embellishment, says fan Andrew Affrench, who caught them touring new album Cradle to The Grave
- Squeeze
- New Theatre Oxford
- 20 October 2015
Riding high on chart success with their new album, Squeeze seemed delighted to be playing the New Theatre in Oxford.
Chris Difford’s back catalogue is packed with so many memorable hits that it would have been a waste not to play some straight away.
Lead singer Glenn Tilbrook launched into a frantic rendition of Hourglass and the opener was swiftly followed by Is That Love from the early 80s and Another Nail in my Heart. Tilbrook’s distinctive vocals don’t seem to have aged, and he belted out numbers from new album Cradle To The Grave, a soundtrack to the TV series about the formative years of radio motormouth Danny Baker. Not all the new songs were particularly catchy – Nirvana didn’t sound much like a Squeeze track at all.
A series of videos served as backdrops, though some of the images, including flies crawling over maps of Europe, appeared to bear no relevance to the tunes. The mini-movies give the show a hi-tech, modern feel, but, perhaps, with so many hits to perform they don’t need any embellishment.
Sometimes the musical accompaniment also seemed a little over the top.
Labelled With Love tells a memorable story but I found it hard to concentrate when the steel guitar was competing with the piano accordion.
Labelled with Love: Squeeze. Picture: Marc West
With Slap and Tickle the crowd were on their feet and Goodbye Girl prompted a rousing singalong. Black Coffee in Bed, Tempted, Pulling Mussels, and Up the Junction all followed to rapturous applause and then it was on to the encores. Radio 2 favourite Happy Days was well received but it was Cool for Cats and Take Me I’m Yours which sent everyone home happy.
Squeeze still sound fantastic after all these years and some of their new songs could become firm favourites.
Before the band came on, potty-mouthed poet John Cooper Clarke shared some ribald verses and gave a makeover to his classic Beasley Street – with a posh sequel entitled Beasley Boulevard.
ANDREW FFRENCH
4/5
All lit up: Glen Tilbrook. Picture: Marc West
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