Live Review : Bad Religion + U.K. Subs @ Academy, Manchester on June 4th 2022

The term “Cult Band” gets thrown around way too much for my liking. If there’s one band however who is deserved of this title, it is U.K. Subs. It is impossible not to enjoy watching a now 78 year old Charlie Harper strut around the stage with an absolute natural suaveness belting out some of the finest Punk songs written. It was a shame that at the start of the set, the Manchester Academy was very sparsely populated, and only by the final portion of the bands 40 minute set, did it seem like there was a pretty decent sized crowd. What this meant however is that those who shown up late missed an absolute treat. The Subs were on top top form, Bassist Alvin Gibbs and Guitarist Steve Straughaun just absolutely oozed coolness and drummer Dave Humphries had some serious chops on him, but the show belonged, completely and entirely to Charlie Harper. From what I’ve read, U.K. Subs will be releasing their final album next year, which inevitably will result in a final tour, but tonight you got the feeling that Charlie Harper will keep doing this until he is physically forced to stop. A truly astounding show appreciated by both the Old Guard of Punks in attendance, of which there were many and the more younger generation, who may have only just been made aware of U.K. Subs from this performance. 

Opening with a raucous rendition of ‘Generator’, it is evident, even to those unfamiliar with Bad Religion, that they write real great Punk Music, at times, exquisitely good Punk Music and for my money, they couldn’t have chosen a better song to open with. What followed was approximately 25 minutes of just absolute wall to wall Bad Religion goodness. All bases were covered from ‘Recipe For Hate’ to ‘Punk Rock Song’ to my personal favourite, ‘Los Angeles is Burning’; albeit with a very Paul Stanley-esque introduction in which Greg Graffin said something along the lines of “Manchester is very similar to Los Angeles as it has two Universities, however what they don’t have in common, is that Los Angeles Is Burning”, it was real scoff inducing stuff. 

Unfortunately, however, this formula got a bit tiresome after about 40 minutes in. I’m still unsure if it was bad sound mixing, or poor setlist construction on the bands side or even a mixture of both, but everything just started to sound pretty repetitive and would only be after a verse and chorus that I would be like “ahh yes, so this is what they’re playing” and the night, for me at least, turned from jubilation to tedium during the middle portion of the set. All was not lost however, as despite the middle-third speedbump, they soon brought it back with another stretch of wall to wall bangers consisting of ‘You’, ‘Infected’, ‘Digital Boy’ & ‘American Jesus’. When I mentioned that Bad Religion write exquisitely good Punk Music, this is what I mean; it is just a shame however that they couldn’t quite keep me there for the whole set. 

There was an incredibly good show hidden there somewhere, however Bad Religion, in my opinion, were the victims of cramming in as much as they could in their approximately 100-minute set. They played in total 27 songs and I think even the most seasoned Bad Religion fan would find holes in that set in which they lost interest. The performance itself was fine, and the band clearly love what they do, this wasn’t a phoned in performance by any stretch of the imagination on the bands part, so I can’t take that away from them whatsoever, however, it just left me feeling a little bit deflated. I feel like if I was to have seen this set at a festival, snipped down to 45-60 minutes of highlights, I would’ve had my mind absolutely blown, but tonight it wasn’t meant to be.