REVIEW: Madness, BIC Bournemouth

By Hilary Porter

MADNESS kicked off their first major UK tour in over two years on the South Coast last night with a performance straight out of the top drawer!

The sold out BIC show in the relatively intimate Windsor Hall was a league above the last time they played locally some 18 months ago at Pompey's Fratton Park when 13,000 fans stood on the boarded over turf and on the terraces and strained to both see and hear the band in an acoustically " challenging" setting.

This time there was no mass punch up in the crowd too, only singing, dancing and good-spirited fun!

Die- hard fans entered into the party spirit by dressing for the occasion. Some came suited and booted in Fred Perry polo shirts, Doc Martens, braces and tartan- lined Harrington jackets, mimicking the band's style, and many more wore red fezzes or trilbies - trademark Madness headwear!Some really pushed the boat out dressing as Pearly Kings and Queens!

Incredibly, it is now 40 years since Madness started out but the 2 Tone Ska songsters show no sign of slowing down for apart from all the crowd- pleasing hits we heard tracks from their first new album in four years ' Can't Touch Us Now'.

The album's title track was the show opener which was warmly if somewhat politely received and other numbers from the album did fare better. The second song, a Madness classic, 'Embarrassment', immediately set heads bobbing and before long the enthusiastic crowd were bouncing, pogoing and singing along to favourite tracks.

I enjoyed the new song 'Herbert', a cheeky little number about a " young man who comes unstuck at a wedding"'and ends up being chased by a father with a sawn off shot gun! It was classic Madness mixed with Ian Dury with a clear nod to the Blockheads' singer stealing the rhyme "cleaners" and "misdemeanours"!

'Mumbo Jumbo' was pure upbeat Nutty Boys too and the huge visuals of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, newspaper headlines and flying pigs certainly made us smile.

More sensitive songs from the album such as Blackbird- a poignant tribute to Amy Winehouse, and a genuinely emotional 'You Are My Everything' stood out and brought some light and shade to proceedings.

But inevitably Suggs ( Graham McPherson) with his super-tight band of nine musicians - including the sensational screaming sax tones of Lee Thompson and the jagged riffing of guitarist Chris Foreman - cranked it up into a frenzy of timeless, fun-fuelled, nostalgia-inducing classics: One Step Beyond, House of Fun, Baggy Trousers, Our House and It Must be Love which closed the set on a real high.

An all too brief encore saw them return with latest single Mr Apples followed by the more familiar track 'Madness' and 'Slow Boat to Cairo'. Just brilliant!