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And so the most cynically motivated musical assault force imaginable in this worst of all possible worlds takes to the stage once more. Notice the name before the band. Now Edmunds has "product" out, he's the one who gets his John Henry in lights, while former frontman (when he had "product" to promote) Nick Lowe steps out of the spotlight to major on bass, wacky poses and baggy red shirt.
Infuriatingly, any feelings that, as a member of the audience, you're being used purely as a unit on Jake Riviera's balance sheet, disappear as soon as Rockpile thrash into whatever piece of delightfully plagiaristic rock 'n' roll comes next on the setlist.
Last time I saw them — with Nick Lowe hogging the centre mic — I thought they were great, unequalled in their ability to demonstrate how to play live. This time they were better.
What other band could get away with the brazen cheek of playing the source they've borrowed from — as Rockpile did when they followed "Trouble Boys" with "Promised Land"? If they'd slung in "Something Else" the circle really would have been unbroken.
And there's only one way that even Rockpile can manage that — by dint of the sheer quality of their playing which consistently transcends the slightness of some of Lowe's material. Slight, that is, lyrically. Musically, they're as good a set of tunes as you're likely to run across flicking through half a dozen song publishers' catalogues. And, with two Edmunds albums and one Lowe album to draw from, you got nothing but the cream of the hard rocking side of this pile of old rock.
But despite drawing so heavily on Nick Lowe's way with a few chords, it was Edmunds who emerged with the greatest honours. Where Lowe was often a picture of diffidence when he was under the leader's spotlight, Edmunds looked, played, sung and posed like he meant it all. It was as though he'd decided he'd screwed up twice before on his quest for fame ("I Hear You Knocking" which they played and "Sabre Dance" which they didn't) so nothing would go wrong this time. In particular, he's overcome his lack of confidence in his voice and discovered that he really can sing. Whether it was with the aid of echo or not, he sounded like he'd stepped right off an original Sun label 45. Tinny, trebly, edgy and squeezed with the memories of a thousand Welsh prairies behind him.
He even gave "Trouble Boys" to Billy Bremner to sing. Looking as ever like an out of work bad guy wrestler with an ill-fitting toupe, Bremner acquitted himself ... adequately. So when do we get BB's Rockpile?
What do you mean, what was Edmunds' guitar playing like? What it's always like, dummy — brilliant, chilling in its sweet and sour intensity. Nick Lowe understood. At the end of a verse, he announced: "And now Dave's gonna tell you how I feel about that girl". And Edmunds explained the emotion perfectly — with a guitar solo, demonstrating succinctly that Rockpile have no peers when it comes to rock 'n' roll which revels in its own simplicity.
They called it rock and the kids did dance to it.
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