The Streets

Though the 2020s have been nothing short of a disaster for vast swathes of touring acts, many have revelled in the discovery of a ‘Use in Case of Emergency’ contingency plan — the Album in Full tour.

The Streets’ announcement last autumn that they’d be touring their seminal 2004 concept album A Grand Don’t Come For Free fell at almost exactly the same time as a plethora of similar announcements from artists seeking the opportunity to bolster ticket sales to a rate not seen since the days of Northern Rock and Woolworths. But, things feel slightly different with Mike Skinner involved.

Though this is the Brummie act’s third tour since lockdown, Skinner has always cut the shape of a genuine artist who stands and supports his favourite work on stage, rather than pure crowd pleasers — it’s a not uncommon opinion within musical circles that The Streets’ first two albums stand peerlessly before nosediving at a rate of knots, but Skinner has always veered away from merely playing the hits.

And so, perhaps foolishly, there is a tinge of curiosity in Cardiff before ‘It Was Supposed To Be So Easy’ cascades across the castle, and Skinner emerges from his album cover replicant bus shelter. Over the next fifty minutes, Skinner unerringly returns to the character he first created more than twenty years ago, an aimless stoner seeking the return of his mysteriously disappeared shoebox containing, as the title implies, a thousand pounds.

Previous Streets’ tours have fluctuated between supporting Skinner with a turntable and single MC, through to more fleshed, detailed instrumental backing arrangements, and it’s the latter — plus more — that we are blessed with this evening. Perhaps not as theatrically involved as something like Lily Allen’s recent album tour, this is a full-fronted, surprisingly choreographed show that goes a long way to highlighting the value of an album in full show when executed with genuine love. We see Skinner delve into — admittedly, light — acting with his backing vocalist Roo Savill for the faux-confrontational ‘Get Out of My House’, and stretch himself as glumly leaning against a lamppost for the still moving ‘Dry Your Eyes’. 

This may not be the most articulated of stage productions, but it’s an almost perfect accompaniment to an album whose wonky electronic ways have always felt like a direct influence on the bedroom and lo-fi scenes that have spawned dramatically in the decades since.

The most Friday night of Friday night crowds move from rapt to wild when we reach a four-song run including both house-inflected ‘Blinded by the Lights’ and staple of the British pub scene ‘Fit But You Know It’, but it’s the closing track Empty Cans — canonically, Skinner rediscovers his £1,000 “in all its glory” down the back of his TV — where the show really highlights its worth. A near nine-minute long, two-way narrative, it’s an impossibility to fit into a standard Streets set, but used as a denouement to an expectant crowd, it perfectly encapsulates both the album — and show’s — strengths.

The character is shorn after this, with Skinner returning to stage for a nine-song encore where any semblance of subtlety is shot into the night sky. He’s in the crowd within seconds of ‘Turn The Page’ ushering his return, and ends the set legs-akimbo, eight feet high being carried around South Wales performing a slightly-less polished ‘Take Me As I Am’.

Under other context, running roughshod through this second act could appear lazy, but in the light of the first hour, it offers a useful retrospective on the quality of what came before — a carefully curated show by a performer who provides his work with the same respect as the fans who took it on over two decades ago.