Pop Will Eat Itself, The Ritz. 12th April 2019

Tonight I’m returning to the 90s, 1990 to be precise, when I first got hold of PWEI’s ‘This is the Day...This is the Hour... This is This!’. I say ‘got hold of’, I was 13 and didn’t spend as much time in record shops... (that cost money), as I did libraries... (that were free) and stocked with a marvellous array of music for my teenage ears. Seriously, whoever was curating what tapes were available in Stockport libraries back then did a marvellous job. This is where I discovered the Poppies. I’d heard bits on the radio here and there, but it’s with this carefully copied tape (complete with black and white photocopy of the inlay, also curtesy of the library) that my love of the Poppies began. I’ve seen Pop Will Eat Itself a few times over the years, promoting newer albums, that have been really good and fantastic shows, but tonight, well... Blasting out This is This in full sounds utterly spectacular. The ‘album-in-full’ live show can be hit and miss, but if it’s an album you know and love, with no filler, then you’ve got something akin to the perfect set. In a music landscape that seems to be forgetting the purpose of an album in favour of streaming random songs, to hear the album celebrated in this way is wonderful. Wise Up! Sucker, Sixteen Different Flavours of Hell, Can U Dig It?, Def.Con.One, Radio P.W.E.I., Not Now James We’re Busy, Wake Up! Time to Die... the list of classic Poppies songs is almost endless and I’m left with a feeling of perfect contentment as my senses are smashed by the mix tape melting pot that is the Poppies sound. I’ll be honest, it’s a bit loose in places, as Crabby shouts “some of these have never been played live”, it does show a little, but it’s so much fun it doesn’t matter. It’s loud, fast and completely unsuitable for listening to in libraries!