As part of Rough Trade’s 50th anniversary curation at the Southbank, Scritti Politti performed two back-to-back shows for the first time since their last UK tour in 2022. The set list was quite similar to back then but did include songs not played live on that tour. Green Gartside is the sole remaining member of the original lineup, performing largely from the band’s 1985 second and most commercially successful studio album, ‘Cupid and Psyche 85’.
They opened on ‘The Sweetest Girl’ and the funk track ‘Small Talk’, the latter with sprinkles of synth keys and abrasive guitar, before reggae single ‘The Word Girl’ with walking guitar chords, their highest charting release reaching number 6 in the UK charts – the second part of the song was fabulously dubbed out. Gartside explained how these 1985 songs were released 45 years ago on Rough Trade, the last of which was written in the band’s Camden Town squat with synth maestro and former band member, David Gamson. The band played the sambary ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’, the communist themed first demo and single from 1978 that started their journey almost 50 years ago. After some technical difficulties and expletives from Gartside, perhaps showing how rusty he is from live performance, there was a scratchy guitar intro to the ’80s hip-hop vibes of single ‘Perfect Way’, which had stripped down percussives and a keyboard solo streaked with Gartside’s twang guitar; a song also covered by Miles Davis.
Although the set list was similar to previous ones, they included some rarities like the band’s 1982 fourth single, ‘Asylums in Jerusalem’, which had not been played since 2018. Gartside performed his single collaboration with Miles Davis, the soulful ‘Oh Patti (Don’t Feel Sorry for Loverboy)’, also singing the highs of ‘Brushed with Oil, Dusted with Powder’ which was no easy feat; fully dreamscape with a proggy guitar instrumental, it was transcendental. They finished their set again predictably on the twinkling magic of ‘Absolute’; the bossy undulations with an almost Kraftwerk edge, returning for an encore of ‘Petrococadollar’ from the band’s ‘Anomie & Bonhomie’ album. Scritti Politti have a new album coming out on the Rough Trade label, release date currently not set and hopefully more tour dates upcoming.
18/07/26: Scritti Politti @ Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.
Photos © Peter Mcdonnell Photography.
© Ayisha Khan.