The Kids Are Still Alright

Last year Channel Four devoted a show to the top ten bands that emerged from the punk era. It wasn t exactly Lipstick Traces the frequent gurning presence of Captain Sensible saw to that but it was a fascinating insight into what happens to teenage nihilists once their hair starts thinning. Namely, in the majority of cases, that it s business very much as usual.

The Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers and The Stranglers are all, in one mutated from or another, still carrying the torch, squeezing into mini-buses and hauling themselves from town-to-town playing the same songs to rather more sedate-looking audiences. And let s not forget that the baddest boys of them all, The Sex Pistols, came out of retirement for a worldwide jaunt four years ago, supported by those contemporary symbols of all things dangerous and seditious Three Colours Red and Terrorvision. You know, who shook maracas and sang that song about Tequilla.
It would be enough to have you crying in your glue bag.
Because Punk was never meant to grow up. It was meant to remain the preserve of teenage noisefreaks and towerblock Rimbauds getting up your nose, fucking up your complexion.
It wasn t meant to be knocking out crumby versions of Suspect Device to the good people of Wakefield well into the Twenty First Century.
So, what to make of the return to the fray of Ireland s best known participants? Who, despite their penchant for (originally) half-mast jeans and (later) knitted cardigans, have always managed to maintain an impeccably cool reputation.
Going to see The Undertones finish their two-date return to Belfast, the fear is two-fold. One that it s going to be like watching Eric Cantona waddle his red-faced way through Alex Ferguson s testimonial. Two that it will be the equivalent of a cheap holiday in someone else s revelry. That the evening really belongs to those who caught them first time round and that you, with your remastered CD s, are a fraud who doesn t really belong.
What you don t expect is to see the gig of the year. And to see it without any hint of irony or wistful (vicarious) nostalgia. In fact to hear songs that in their outlook and attitude are far more contemporary in sensibility than the Limp Biszkit Queens Of The Stone Age sports rock pap that s currently (and mystifyingly) being lauded far and wide.
Because The Undertones really are terrific and the gig is about as far away from a slightly embarrassing act of desperation as you could imagine. The first thirty seconds of True Confessions still manages to sound more thrilling than a few notable pearls aside, but just a few twenty years of subsequently worthy Irish rock. Here Comes The Summer wipes the ersatz-youth pop of Supergrass and their ilk clean off the blackboard, and when during a blasting Male Model someone notices the bloke long suspected to be the song s main target jigging good-humouredly along in The Empire s balcony, well, you ve just got yourself a moment.
Charging through their set, it becomes crystal clear that (a) the band belonged to that second generation of imps the ones that got to merrily play with the toys that Sid et al chucked so brilliantly from the pop pram and (b) if The Undertones are a punk band, they re a punk band the way The Specials, Dexy s Midnight Runners, even PiL were punk bands. Strong in belief, elastic in imagination.
But, ultimately, it is a sad occasion. Not because of anything the band do. More because the Derry five piece crafted over four albums a body of work that has often been obscured by the shadow of their debut single, with the result that the snorkels/no girlfriends image of common currency doesn t take into account their hilarious spitefulness ( Smarter Than You ), their scuffed jubilation ( Hypnotised ), their way with a wisecrack ( Mars Bar ), their anger ( It s Gonna Happen ) and their modest beauty ( Julie Ocean , Wednesday Week ).
But sadder still is that, nowadays when Irish chart acts are content to sit on stools and campaign against Napster, it s clearer than ever that the best (TOTP-worrying) pop band ever to come out of the country have never been in danger of being bettered.
Because, despite what they told us, it doesn t seem to happen all the time.