Modern English know what their audience wants and they have no qualms about giving it to them. If the mostly reformed original 80’s line up wasn’t enough of a clue then the merchandise table made it pretty obvious; it offered the choice of their first three albums which span the years 1981-1984 (plus their new album) and one t-shirt design with the cover art for the original “I Melt With You” single emblazoned on it.
Most of the band members seem to have aged well, certainly better than some of their music. Energetic front man, Robbie Grey, comically announced they had just come from Toronto with broken keyboards and broken equipment as broken men. But they looked pretty healthy and happy as they ripped through beefy and very loud, rock oriented versions of classic tracks from their first three LPs as well as a couple of songs from their new album Soundtrack. The new songs were surprisingly decent; the title track sounded like an inspired nourish rocker a la Pulp’s “This Is Hardcore” only darker and louder. The older songs held up pretty well for the most part although they did make a few missteps such as turning the dour, dancy, Joy Division influenced “Life In The Gladhouse” into a schmaltzy, band intro number and not playing any tracks from the unfairly maligned and recently reissued, Stop/Start.
Even though they played very well and the band, especially Grey, have obvious enthusiasm for the material, there seemed to be something missing. Perhaps tellingly, they were at their best when playing songs from their twenty-nine year old debut LP Mesh & Lace. Ironically, these songs sounded the most contemporary and animated with Grey, himself stating his preference for that album over After The Snow before the band launched into a blistering version of “Black Houses”.
The band ended the relatively short set with their two biggest hits, “Hands Across The Sea” and the inevitable, audience sing-along “I Melt With You”. All of which seemed curiously anticlimactic until after a very brief pause they returned to play an excoriating but sadly, shortened version of “Sixteen Days”. As the band tore the song into shreds of guitar feedback and tribal drumming and Grey began jumping around wildly and screaming “sixteen days no bread and water!” the joy and energy they exuded was contagious and you couldn’t help but wish the entire set was as good as the encore.
Originally posted @ http://www.journalismnow.com/news/music/broken-keyboards-broken-men-modern-english-live-at-le-poisson-rouge-71610
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