Broken Family Band – Jericho Tavern, Oxford – 25th October

The Broken Family Band have always been a curious proposition, while being perpetually lavished with critical praise and popular enough that they don’t have to sell their own cds, they’ve never been popular enough for them to sell very well. Apparently this kind of thing grates on a band and that’s how we’ve reached this point, the penultimate Broken Family Band gig (What, you thought we were important enough to get invited to the grand finale?).

Cambridge’s finest (although don’t say that too loudly around here, Oxfordarians ACTUALLY really don’t like Cambridge…we know, weird) open the set with their biggest “hit”, the Skins featured ‘It’s All Over’ and the poignancy isn’t lost on the crowd as cheers of “don’t give up” punctuate the song’s quieter moments. What follows is a set of the band’s finest moments with only new single ‘Salivating’ and ‘Borrowed Time’ featuring on latest release ‘Please and Thank You’. The latter is the perfect example of why this is a band that will be sorely missed, after seven albums they can still produce a line as inspired as ‘and in the old folks home where they leave us//i will fuck you on the stairlift”.

As the gig progresses we have increasingly bizarre crowd interaction as heckles include a young lady who yells at the stage exclusively in french and an elderly gentleman who finds it h-i-larious to yell “thank you Broken Social Scene” at inappropriate moments. Undeterred the band continue to delve into their back catalogue to provide set highlight ‘John Belushi’ taken from their debut ‘Welcome Home,Loser’. Requesting a Sunday Sing-Along, singer Steven Adams gets his wish as the crowd return his vocals word for word.

Defying the venue’s curfew to play two fan favourites from debut album ‘Cold Water Songs’ the crowd are especially receptive of closer ‘Devil in the Details’ with its opening greeted with the loudest cheer of the night. The band thanks the crowd for the night and the last eight years followed by a long, seemingly emotional embrace while the mass applause shows no signs of ceasing. Eventually, however, it peters out and the band are left to ponder their next moves. Our money is on frontman Ant/Dec (delete where appropriate) reuniting with Dec/Ant (delete where appropriate) to try to re-introduce Saturday Night Takeaway…sorry, we hate a cheap shot but Steven’s resemblance to Ant/Dec(delete where appropriate) really is uncanny. Either way, what we can guarantee is that we’ll be at the very front for the 2020 reunion tour.

JB

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