NEW MODEL ARMY
OXFORD, O2 ACADEMY 23APRIL 2014
St. George’s Day 2014, where else should you be celebrating it but Oxford Academy off to see old favourites New Model Army. We left in plenty of time to allow for potential traffic problems which fortunately did not materialise. We arrived in time to get to the front and on came the support act, The Simpletone. They were a decent warm up for themain act and certainly got the crowd going by the time they had finished their set, with my favourites being ‘Whiskey Head’ and ‘Black Box’.
The evening was warming up by the time New Model Army came on, owing to the air conditioning being switched off and the size of the crowd. With low lighting on stage, New Model Army came on to the atmospheric track ‘Stormclouds’ from their tremendous recent album ‘Between Dog And Wolf’. Justin Sullivan delivered it with his usual passion and went straight into ‘No Rest’, one of my favourites from 1985. Marshall Gill and Ceri Monger were leaping around and clearly enjoying themselves whilst Justin gave a great airing of this classic New Model Army track. The band then proceeded to play three tracks from the current album, ‘March In September’, ‘Did You Make It Safe?’ and ‘Pull The Sun’. These all sounded crisp and were greatly enjoyed by the audience.
At this point Dean White on keyboards provided the start to ‘White Coats’, another classic track. Justin was really going at the chorus ‘hey, hey I listen to you pray as if some help will come, hey, hey she will dance on our graves when we are dead and gone’. This track clearly went down very well with the audience and was followed by ‘No Pain’ from ‘Strange Brotherhood’. Whilst slower than ‘White Coats’, it was well received by the fans and was followed by ‘I Need More Time’ from the current album. This track has really grown on me and was performed impeccably by the entire band.
Next up was the classic ‘Get Me Out’ which really had the crowd going berserk with Justin clearly warmed up with ‘get me out, get me out of this place, get me out of this trap, get me out of my brain’ ringing out across the venue. This was followed by two more tracks from the current album, ‘Knievel’ and ‘Between Dog And Wolf’, the latter of which is already becoming a firm favourite of mine. By this point, the band were all extremely hot due to their efforts and the lack of air conditioning referred to earlier, which was mentioned by Justin. Like he says, you either have it on and it’s freezing cold or off and it’s too hot, there’s nothing in between.
They continued with ‘Today is A Good Day’ and then the highlight of the evening for me, ‘Christian Militia’ from their first album ‘Vengeance’. It is great that the band still bring out some real surprises for their real long term fans (and there are plenty of them) and it was played with passion by them all. Things had really warmed up at this point with the crowd really dancing, jumping and singing along and next up was another classic single ‘Here Comes The War’.
The mood slowed slightly for a great version of ‘High’ and their set was rounded off with ‘Wonderful Way To Go’, another vastly underrated single from their catalogue.
Whilst waiting for the encore the crowd were recovering temporarily from the extreme heat of the night and the passionate performance by the band, including temporary drummer Andy Woodard borrowed from Adam Ant’s band (whilst Michael Dean is recovering from serious knee surgery complications).
When they returned they performed another of the early classics, ‘The Price’ and finished with ‘Green And Grey’. This song always manages to get a large percentage of the audience singing along whilst balanced on someone’s shoulders!. Justin’s presence on stage is there for all to see and the audience left for their homes safe in the knowledge that New Model Army are still a truly great band to go and see live. My message to you all is to go and watch them, they’re still producing great songs after 30 years and always find room for some of their loyal fan base’s favourite tracks from their back catalogue.
Words & Pictures by Ian Davis
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