Photos by Tyler King
Forty-five years after the release of their debut album Entertainment! in the United States, Gang Of Four announced their farewell tour, complete with two stops at The Chapel in San Francisco. The tour sees the band performing their first album in its entirety followed by a set of other songs by the band, going up to their third album Songs Of The Free. The band, now consisting of original vocalist Jon Kin and original drummer Hugo Burnham, now has Gail Greenwood on bass and Ted Leo on guitar. The four of them took to the stage at the second show at The Chapel, Hugo supported by a single crutch under his arm, the drummer having fractured his left leg a couple of weeks before.
The crowd cheered, knowing that this was the last time that they would witness the political post-punk provocateurs, and soon Gail played the opening bassline of “Ether,” the opening song on the Entertainment! album. It’s a song that demands you to move, like so many songs by Gang Of Four. Propelled by Hugo’s metronome-precise drumming and a funk-inspired bassline by the late Dave Allen, the crowd understood the assignment and moved their bodies accordingly, Jon King dryly spitting out, “Dirt behind the daydream, the happy ever after is at the end of the rainbow.”
The band continued to go through the tracklisting of the Entertainment! album in sequenced order, each song being infused with a manic energy that can only exist in a live setting. Unfortunately “Guns Before Butter,” a song that I had never seen the band play before, had to be skipped due to Hugo’s fractured leg, which is completely understandable. The energetic end chant of “Return The Gift” had shot a rush of adrenaline into the crowd by that point, the audience singing along as Jon urged, “Please send me evenings and weekends!” I’m sure that it’s a sentiment that many of the people in the crowd can relate to.
Entertainment! is an album that lives in my bloodstream. Since first listening to it fifteen years ago I’ve listened to it countless times, and it’s a rare album that I would call perfect from front to back. I had seen Gang Of Four twice before (once was the line-up led by the late Andy Gill, the other was a couple of years ago with Jon, Hugo, Sara Lee, and David Pajo), and at both shows the same songs from the album were performed: the aforementioned “Ether,” “Not Great Men,” “At Home He’s A Tourist,” and the other three or four that most people would call the best songs on the album. But for me, all twelve songs on the album are held in high esteem, and it was the few that I hadn’t already seen that I was looking forward to the most. “Glass” was first, arguably the song on Entertainment! that’s the most accessible, as well as the shortest song on the album. The next two, “Contract” and “5.45,” are songs that could have fit into any setlist that the band constructed, and I’ll be scratching my head for the rest of my life wondering why they weren’t played more often, as they both had the crowd going and shouting back, “Guerilla war struggle is the new entertainment!”
The first set ended with the last song on the album, “Anthrax.” The original opens with Andy Gill’s guitar feedback creating a sense of unease, and Ted Leo’s version of it was a sight to behold. One second he was twiddling knobs on a delay pedal to create an unending stream of noise, the next second Jon King was striking the guitar with his tambourine, joining in on the chaotic cacophony. Once the song ended there was an intermission as the band left the stage to return ten minutes later to play a mix of other songs from their back catalogue. Opening with “He’d Send In The Army” helped set the stage, with Jon King taking a baseball bat to a microwave set to the beat of the song.
The rest of the second set saw the band playing banger after banger, tearing through songs like “Outside The Trains Don’t Run On Time” and “I Love A Man In A Uniform.” It all came to a head with “To Hell With Poverty,” which saw the entire crowd on their feet and chanting “Ohhhh ow ow ow ow!” back to Jon during the intro of the song. The set showed off Hugo as a true powerhouse of a drummer who, even with a fractured leg, was putting people half his age to shame. Ted Leo’s guitar playing felt like a reinterpretation of Andy Gill’s iconic parts, and his jerking around added a bit of theatrics to the songs. Gail Greenwood absolutely crushed it, infusing a sense of swagger and true rock star energy to her playing. And Jon King truly proved that he is one of the greatest frontmen of all time, sliding and jumping around the stage one second, then putting his hands high above his head and gesticulating wildly the next.
The encore saw the band playing “Armalite Rifle,” the b-side to the “Damaged Goods” single. Along with “Paralyzed,” which was performed earlier in the set, it saw Ted on lead vocals, and it was yet another song that left me perplexed as to why it was never played more often. The show ended with Jon telling the crowd that the band was going to repeat themselves before Gail, Ted, and Hugo began playing the intro to “Damaged Goods.” I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t bouncing and jumping for the entirety of the song, and I wasn’t the only one, a mosh pit forming in the center of the dancefloor as the song picked up. The ending lyrics of the song, “I’m kissing you goodbye,” felt especially fitting, as they were the last words that the crowd at The Chapel would ever hear Jon sing before the final Gang Of Four show in San Francisco came to a close.
After the rest of the band left the stage, Hugo Burnham stepped up to the microphone. He told the crowd that just says before he and Jon had gone to the funeral service of original bassist Dave Allen, who had passed away in Portland shortly before the start of the band’s farewell tour. After thanking the audience again, he left the crowd with two requests. One: be the resistance. Two: support live music. I plan on doing Gang Of Four proud by doing both.
