Hugh Cornwell

Hugh Cornwell...I recognise that name…isn’t he in The Stranglers? Actually, he departed The Stranglers in 1990 and has since toured and recorded 10 studio albums as a solo artist (as many as he made with The Stranglers). He’s touring Australia and New Zealand at the moment, so we thought we’d pop along to see him.

He was playing at the San Fran, so, as is becoming tradition, we went to pizza joint Santeria beforehand. Excellent as ever. The San Fran doors weren’t opening until 8:00pm on this occasion – indicating that there was no support act – so we whiled away some time in Cuba Street’s S&M Bar. Cuba Street, despite being full of restaurants and shops, has few decent bars – there’s a couple of very pubby pubs – but S&M is an oasis of calm…at least, at 7:30pm. S&M stands for “Scotty & Mal’s” before you go getting any ideas.

We’d been to see The Stranglers a few years ago – the remnants of the original band, with a new singer. As Cornwell was really the creative force behind the band’s success, they’ve really become a heritage act playing their greatest hits; despite having also recorded a further eight albums since Cornwell’s departure, that no-one listens to.

Cornwell, however, does not take this approach. Up front at the beginning of the show (after two songs I didn’t recognise), he told us he’d be playing two songs from a solo album, followed by a Stranglers “nugget”, as he called it. Some of these “nuggets” were also songs I didn’t know, rather than big hit singles. This may have been due to the fact that they were performing as a three-piece, without a keyboard player, so probably couldn’t do justice to tracks like Golden Brown. So, overall, I recognised five songs from the complete set, and two of those were in the encore: Skin Deep, Strange Little Girl, There’s Always The Sun, Nice ‘n Sleazy, and Hanging Around. Of the rest of the songs, the sound was somewhat monochromatic. Unlike a lot of bands, they’re not forever changing guitars between songs – everything is played on the same instruments, and of course with Cornwell's distinctive voice, it still sounded rather, well, Strangley. Which is no bad thing, I hasten to add. I’ll be going shopping to pick up one of his solo albums – four tracks from the latest, Moments of Madness, featured in the set. Hopefully there’s a bit more variety in the studio versions. And then, we’ll see…