To the sound of sirens and klaxons, The Streets’ main man. Mike Skinner strolls onto the Olympia stage, empties his pockets onto the drum riser – wallet, phone, other assorted items – and plunges straight into the crowd, shaking hands, asking ‘how are you doing?’, ‘alright?’. His cracking band - beatmaker, drummer, bass, lead guitarist; and vocalist Kevin Mark Trail (a man who has been at Skinner’s side since The Streets year zero) – tuck into ‘Turn the Page’. Debut album. First track. It simply couldn’t be any other tune to open proceedings.

“I’m forty-fifth generation Roman,” he spits and ploughs into the four hundred or so words of the song that changed the UK 2-step-garage climate, dragging it into the daylight. Dressed in trademark black, he smashes the fourth wall, picking out people in the crowd – complimenting, joshing, giving the thumbs up to a bewildered quartet in the boxes, describing them as Gladiators, thumbing down when they don’t respond. It’s a blithesome moment, Streets’ humour is lettered.

They come tearing out the gate and never let up. The rush of words, the compelling frontman, the glorious movement from track to track, nuanced differences in the songs when played live, make it that the crowd grab on, chug along and are delirious with it. Through recent single ‘Who’s Got the Bag’ and ‘Let’s Push Things Forward’ we plough, followed with another cut from the beyond seminal debut Original Pirate Material. And then another - ‘Don’t Mug Yourself’, Skinner warning the crowd to not do him dirty on Instagram, joking that he’ll fight every last one of us.

The Streets at 3Olympia Theatre. Monday 23rd of October 2023. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Of course, it’s garage. But it’s punky. It’s trappy. It’s dubby. It’s funky. It’s even metallic. When the band lurch into Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’, it doesn’t feel leftfield. All in all, the gig has the marvelous feel of a garage party, where anything might happen, Skinner roves in and out of the crowd, offering shots of tequila, circles rippling around him, the stall and balcony above are a tidal wave of delirious disciples almost pouring down.

During ‘Never Went to Church’, Skinner’s preparing shots on a quickly assembled bar made with speakers, on ‘Everything is Borrowed’ he’s tut-tutting vapers and requesting IDs from middle-aged punters. Back on stage and into the brilliant ‘Has It Come to This?’, the audacity and guts of it still bleeding even after a couple of decades. Master Peace, the fantastic support act tonight, pops out for ‘I Wish You Loved You as Much as You Love Him’, a wonderful turn from 2020’s mixtape None of Us Are Getting Out of This Alive. No truer word said.

The four to floor bass thump of another recent single ‘Wrong Answers Only’, pounds the crowd into a frenzy, a good natured one mind you. Led by the irascible front man, who is in good form, content it would appear to be back leading The Streets with a new album. And why wouldn’t he? He’s spent the last number of months on the promotional trail for his new feature film which shares the same name as said recent album – The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light. That album is excellent and he has a back catalogue for which to die for.

The Streets at 3Olympia Theatre. Monday 23rd of October 2023. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Then he’s wandering again into the crowd, with the loaves and fishes’ bottle of Tequila, seeking ID’s, chatting with punters, going in and out of song. He stands on the pit rail, trucking ‘On the Edge of a Cliff’, singing about every single one of your ancestors, it’s iconic, he points out band T-shirts on the balcony, before body surfing back to the stage. New track ‘Troubled Water’ is a mega cut, then the band funk the hell out of ‘Weak Become Heroes’.

Another fresh cut from the new record ‘Too Much Yayo’ is spot on, with its descriptions of club as doll house, of prison break, of otherworld, of seven deadly sins. ‘Fit But You Know It’, cues delirium. They exit. Olé, Olé, Olé is chanted. They reappear pronto. Mike telling is he was almost in the Uber, until he remembered he has to teach us how to mosh. We lose ourselves in megahit ‘Dry Your Eyes’. For better or worse, it’s Skinner’s Imagine, his Fairytale of New York – a song that is an apogee of artistic expression but makes it that everyone wants a piece of you. Thankfully, that’s all done with now and we get to simply glory in how incredible a song it is. Mike tells us that he’s missed all this, even the tour bus, even the tour that is like a stag party that lasts for three weeks. Yikes!

He dives back into the crowd, the miraculous bottle still gushing into expectant mouths. Every soul in the building moshes for ‘Blinded by the Lights’. After an age Skinner’s dissociated voice reconnects with himself and they appear front of stage, the bottle at last empty and into the drum and bass stomp of ‘Take Me as I Am’ we hurl, The Streets’ ringmaster lit by a security man’s torch and we carry on with the garage party of old. Gutsy.

The Streets at 3Olympia Theatre. Monday 23rd of October 2023. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.