Ellen Beth Abdi comes out in a burst of Mancunian energy, bantering with the crowd before she even reaches the mic. However, it quickly goes wrong as one of her keyboards isn’t playing ball, leading to a series of awkward flubs during the otherwise lovely Kingsway Bouquet. Despite losing pockets of the audience early on, Abdi has a cracking voice that would be well-served with a full backing band. But you have to admire the DIY grind as she loops and loops and loops her own voice for Bad Dream and a highly original take on Siouxsie & the Banshees’ Spellbound. And if none of that floats your boat, she’s also selling marmalade downstairs.
It’s just been Jez Kerr, Donald Johnson and Martin Moscrop for a while now from the original ACR lineup. For this tour, they’re joined by bassist Viv Griffin who excels in the role, especially given the prominence of the instrument and how it carries much of their older material.
The first half of the set is a complete run-through of their new album, It All Comes Down To This. It’s the first they’ve made as just the core trio, and it’s appropriately dialled in. Rather than some “legacy” acts who seem to simply go through the motions, it’s clear that the band have a real stake in this new music and are excited to play it. It’s a solid album, though the funky-revolutionary spirit of their best material is certainly dimmed. Super producer de jour, Dan Carey, ensures that the new album is as polished as the talented band deserve, but it still can’t be helped that God Knows sounds like Invisible Touch-era Genesis.
Following the album, the cowbells are out in force, so it’s clearly party time. The band are in good fettle, bantering with the crowd and each other, swapping instruments seamlessly (shoutout to Martin Moscrop’s trumpet work). The epic Winter Hill gets things going, before a Johnny Marr recording introduces Do The Du (Johnson also namedrops their pal Ian Rankin couldn’t make it because he’s on holiday, not in The Oxford Bar as someone very reasonably shouts out). Touch has been dusted off for this tour, making it 40-odd years since the band’s aired it live, but all of these early ’80s jams (including a great cover of Talking Heads’ Houses in Motion) still measure up brilliantly.
The funk is well and truly loose on the band’s herky-jerky cover of Shack Up, sounding like Gang Of Four gone disco, while Knife Slits Water keeps the energy high to close off the set nicely. ACR have always felt like an underrated band from the classic first wave of post-punk – possibly because their omnivorous musical interests made them trickier to categorise back in the day – but tonight is ample proof that they deserve to be mentioned along with the best of them.