Buzzin Music

Frankie Stubbs and Davie Burdon (Leatherface) at the Museum Vaults, Sunderland, 9th May 2009

So a message comes through on Facebook inviting you to go and see an acoustic set of the greatest North East punk group ever. Even though your girlfriend is heavily pregnant, she reluctantly agrees to drive as long as she gets a seat.  I tell her she’ll hear the greatest punk song ever written and she looks at me as if to say, “Heard it all before”. The pub was a good old fashioned place and we were the first there.

Frankie Stubbs invited us to sit with him and his lovely girlfriend Christine and we spoke about kids, stabilizers and Thin Lizzy.

As more people started to arrive, and the 8pm start was getting more and more like a 9pm start, Davie Burdon (Ex-Leatherface and current Former Cell Mate) sang a couple of songs.

Davie Burdon has a really good voice, smashing songs and a cover of No Surrender by Bruce Springsteen got people into the swing of the night. Even some of the more famous Sunderland music scene en(The Gold Virgins, remember them) started to get into it.

Frankie Stubbs then took to the stage with a bottle of red and proceeded to play a mix of Leatherface and Jesse songs, with a few cover versions. Frankie Stubbs’ version of The Ship Song and In the Ghetto are different to say the least, but it’s when Frankie Stubss plays his own songs that you can really see how talented he is.

Indestructable by Jesse sounds incredible, Dead Industrial Atmosphere haunting, and the previously mentioned ‘greatest punk song ever’ Not Superstitious, sounding sparse when played just on an acoustic. Lovely.

It really was a top night, however strange it was for me sitting with someone I had seen on numerous occasions and thought was the most under rated song writer in the UK drinking and discussing how good an album Nebraska is.

I can’t wait for the new Leatherface album.