Madness
Galway Airport
★★★★☆
The old joke used to go that the first sign of madness is Suggs walking up your driveway. At Galway Airport, the cue is a red velvet curtain on a big screen and The Boomtown Rats sounding out across the tent.
When the curtain is drawn, and theatrical introductions have been broadcast, the band emerges – a sea of bowler hats, gangster suits and schoolboy smirks. Suggs stares the crowd down, arms stretched out like airplane wings, and bellows the opening to One Step Beyond, “Hey you, don’t watch that! Watch this!”
The Londoner, now in his early 60s, got his nickname from sticking a pin into an encyclopedia of jazz musicians and landing on Peter Suggs. Tonight’s set is far more considered. There are early settlers to get people onside. One Step Beyond rolls into Embarrassment, and then on to the group’s first single, The Prince, which to everyone’s dismay is celebrating its 45th birthday.
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Dress codes can provide good footholds at gigs. Taylor Swift nights are awash with friendship bracelets, cowboy hats and leather boots, but Madness have dominated the fez and loose-fitting trousers markets for decades. There is no shortage of Blues Brothers tribute acts either – fathers in their Sunday best, Crombie overcoats and thick sunglasses completing the fit.
Everyone wants to look like those on stage. Madness shows are like watching The Sopranos in that you can experience the whole thing differently by focusing your attention on different characters. To Suggs’ right is saxophonist Lee Thompson, who makes it very hard to look away.
Thommo’s Benny Hill routine includes donning a policeman’s hat and pretending to beat Suggs to a pulp. During Wings of a Dove, he accidentally launches a tambourine at the front row, which is duly lobbed back at him. The horn section, who are the most schoolboy of all, loiter guiltily in songs that do not require them. If they aren’t needed for two in a row, they disappear backstage and return with small bottles of Peroni.
After the spate of early classics, the set does meander a touch without losing all of its bounce. In June, the band released their 13th studio album and, bizarrely, their first UK number one record. Understandably, they give it some airtime onstage and the songs are good, just not familiar.
All of which gears towards a grand finale. With half an hour to go, the stage is cleared but for guitarist Chris Foreman, who dons a purple and polka dot fur coat. Chrissy Boy regrets to inform everyone that this will be the last song, before belting out a karaoke version Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On a Prayer. “That shouldn’t be allowed,” Thommo says.
From there, it is a block of classics. House of Fun, Baggy Trousers, Our House and the highlight, It Must Be Love, which elicits airplane arms from all 5,000 attendees. The fez finally appears onstage and Night Boat to Cairo takes us all the way home.
