Immediately, the number on the story-high banner and T-shirts hits you right in the solar plexus: Buzzcocks 40. Could two generations have actually passed since the start of English punk?
Well, the Buzzcocks were started by Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto in early 1976. They added Steve Diggle a few months later in time for a Manchester show with the Sex Pistols that summer. By now, they’re one of the few bands from London’s original 100 Club Punk Festival in 1976—a roster that also included the Clash, the Damned, and Siouxsie and the Banshees—to still remain on the road.
Of course they’ve taken time off here and there—including most of the 1980s. But for the anniversary tour, stopping at Washington’s 9:30 Club Wednesday night, they roared through a set of their melodic upbeat fizz, bringing nostalgic joy to legions of greyed original fans, but also an instructive glimpse at actual pop-punk for fans too young to have been there when it happened.
By now the band is fronted by just Shelley and Diggle, trading off songs and guitar licks. You might think they’ve had to change their rhythm section over the years, like other people change tires. But drummer Danny Ferrant has been with them for a decade now; bassist Chris Remington for eight years.
Together they concentrate on that barrage of pop excellence that ended up on their classic 1979 compilation Singles Going Steady while only throwing in a couple of things from 2014’s The Way, People are Strange Machines, and It’s Not You, their most recent release and their first in six years. Instead, it was a heady rush of “Promises,” “Love You More,” “I Don’t Mind,” and “Fast Cars.”
They bookended their 17-song main set with two things from their earliest “Spiral Scratch” EP in 1977, “Boredom” and “Time’s Up”; their very vitality quickly answering their own question “What Ever Happened To?”
Shelley and Diggle are by now each 61. But Diggle kept up the energy and windmill chords that, along with his mod polka-dot shirt and hair, suggested a longer tradition with the Who than the Damned or their ilk. Shelley may have looked more his age—or rather, like a lot of his fans of the same age in the audience—a solid build with a grey beard and no pretense of preening for youth culture whatsoever. But his voice still had the same keening edge of adolescence that made the questions in his songs so poignant.
The Buzzcocks were never the most political band among the original punk pack. But they prefaced their “Autonomy” with a few curse words for Donald Trump. And while the best of their songs are short and sweet, they stretched out on a few, even allowing Ferrant a drum solo during “Moving Away from the Pulsebeat.”
Of course they saved their most enduring anthems to the end—songs so melodic and energetic they’ve entered the culture through countless movies and commercials and are known to millions more than anybody who would recognize the band’s name. These include “You Say You Don’t Love Me,” the penultimate tune in the main set, and the ecstatic punch of the encore that began with “What Do I Get?,” “Orgasm Addict,” and “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve).”
They closed with “Harmony in My Head,” which was predictable since Diggle had switched into a T-shirt with that phrase on it for the encore. When he tried to get the crowed to sing its chorus, though, it tended to fizzle. Had they been too pummeled by the pop by then? Or were they just lazy? More likely, they were depending on the band to take it to soaring heights, as they’ve done on their records for, erg, 40 years.
SETLIST
Boredom
Fast Cars
Totally From the Heart
I Don’t Mind
People are Strange Machines
What Ever Happened To?
Autonomy
Why She’s a Girl from the Chainstore
Moving Away from the Pulsebeat
Nothing Left
Sick City Sometimes
It’s Not You
Love You More
Promises
Noise Annoys
You Say You Don’t Love Me
Time’s Up
ENCORE
What Do I Get?
Orgasm Addict
Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)
Harmony In My Head
