Wonderful

It would've been easy for a guy with as well documented mental health issues as Adam Ant has had over the years, to look on this tour as nothing more than a money spinning greatest hits tour,

pop out, wheel out the tunes that people expect you to play, the ones that made you dress up in silly outfits and do the funny dances on Top of the Pops, do an hour or so onstage with a bunch of jobbing musicians, pocket the money and disappear back into obscurity again.....

but that forgets that Adam Ant was once part of that great music revolution that was called Punk, when he was a young unknown singer/songwriter who wrote a couple of superb under rated and largely forgotten albums before McClaren dropped him and he got out the war paint.....

Tonight he reminded people of that, with a vengeance!!

It was a set list stuffed full of songs he wanted to play, the raw aggression and confidence of the "Dirk Wears White Sox" era, the dazzling brilliance of some criminally underplayed' B' sides, from back when people knew that a good B side was an opportunity to really be creative and rewarding,

and yes, he did do the housewives choice of the songs you all know and love ( though you deny it to yourselves!), and in a set as diverse and interesting as the one he chose, they sat comfortably and were woven seamlessly into the evening....

He looked good, he looked well and he looked confident and at ease with himself, he even did "banter," regaling the audience of times past...

"This is one of the songs i did at live aid, only did three, should have been four but the f**king Boomtown Rats came on early...."

"Kurt Cobain, yeah,met him a couple of times, nice guy,..bit scruffy but nice!"

"This is an Iggy Pop song, used to know Iggy Pop, nice guy but always got his knob out....scared my friend!!"

It makes you wonder just how good he would've become if he hadn't struggled for so long with the Bipolar disorder,

theres a thin line between genius and insanity...tonight it was the former.


adam ant