Billy Bragg is perhaps Britain’s most intelligent and well-loved protest singer. He’s been unapologetically mixing pop and politics since 1983. He’s currently on his Roaring Forty tour across the UK and just in case we were feeling lonely in Nottingham the Milkman of Human Kindness makes a stop at Rock City to offer up his poetry...
When you have an engrossing forty minute documentary about your forty year career you don’t need a support act. And who would you get to support Billy Bragg anyway?
Opening song, The Wolf Covers Its Tracks ends with a shout from Bragg of “End the invasion of Gaza!” to which the audience offer wholehearted support. Bragg talks between songs like no other performer I’ve ever seen, but he has the audience gripped even when explaining the intricacies of raising groundwater causing floods, in his pre-amble to King Tide and the Sunny Day Flood.
Sexuality is refashioned as a song of allyship with our transgender and non-binary siblings. Played in unison with Mid-Century Modern Bragg says that these songs are “A call to geezers my age to get up to speed with the times.” He explains his thoughts on anti-trans activists: “Surely ‘biology is destiny’ is the maxim that the patriarchy has been using for the last 2,000 years to deprive women of their rights. I think my 25-year-old self would be very disappointed in me if I didn’t get my arse in gear over this. Our trans siblings need cis allies. The threat to women, to girls and to trans women all comes from the same place, and that place is male violence, which needs to be stamped out.”
Levi Stubbs’ Tears is a beautifully written story song that examines domestic abuse, whilst Tank Park Salute is a touching tribute to his father’s untimely death when Bragg was just eighteen years old. Rich Men Earning North of a Million is a rousing pro-unionisation response to Oliver Anthony’s song Rich Men North of Richmond which Bragg found to be rather toothless.
Bragg asks if anyone in the audience saw him in Nottingham in 1984, a few cheers are heard, evidence that his audience has clearly grown with him. This is the oldest crowd I’ve ever seen at Rock City – and if it’s one of the less mobile in terms of dancing or jumping around then that lack of mobility is made up for in noise and shouts of appreciation and support throughout.
Bragg sings with a touch less venom in his voice these days but his lyrics remain as insightful and acerbic as ever. His voice may be a little less punk than in the eighties but he’s matured into a more melodious singer without losing anything, and he remains instantly recognisable.
Bragg’s setlist is made up of 26 tracks spanning eleven albums plus four covers including The World Turned Upside Down (Leon Rosselson), Way over Yonder in the Minor Key (Woody Guthrie), Which Side Are You On? (The Almanac Singers), and All You Fascists Are Bound to Lose (Woody Guthrie) which are all well received and could easily have been written by Bragg himself, so close are they in style and content.
Having played a brilliant show and put the World to rights, Bragg then launches into the entire seventeen minutes of his seven-song debut album: Life’s a Riot With Spy Vs Spy as an encore. It’s a brilliant way to end the show. Forty years on from his punk beginnings, Bragg remains in touch with the times, the politics and his audience, and no one leaves Rock City without pondering on some of the issues he has raised.
Billy Bragg performed at Rock City on 2 December 2023
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