From The Jam @ The Gov, Adelaide 24/9/2019
It might be have been a cold Tuesday night but that didn’t stop Adelaide selling out The Gov for From The Jam. To label them a tribute band is so far from the truth as they are way better than that. Superb! Brilliant! The trio featuring The Jam’s original bassist Bruce Foxton along with Russell Hastings and Mike Randon really did give The Jam back catalogue a good going over.
The Gov was so packed, expats out in force and it was more like a Friday night crowd with the amount of energy in the room. There definitely was a sense of anticipation and excitement for what was about to unfold. For me, The Jam were one of those bands that weren’t given enough credit considering they had eighteen Top 40 hits in the UK with four number ones. One could argue about the relative merits of From The Jam but for this sold out crowd it was about bringing this body of amazing work by The Jam to life.
Russell Hastings is a character and has plenty of swagger. His knowledge of The Jam, the compositions, his moves, his vocals, his guitaring and everything else was top shelf. When you hear die hard fans after the show tell you that this show was as good as The Jam back in 1986. The theme from Batman set the scene with the band tearing apart David Watts. Hastings opening remarks “We told you we’d come back!” There was huge applause for Modern World and chart hit A Town Called Malice. After The Butterfly Collector Hastings looked out to the crowd to see a fan wearing a t-shirt from the 2008 asking if it was really his or did he steal it. Telling the masses it was great to be back it was on to Saturday’s Kids and News Of The World prompting the point from Hastings that Australia is a wonderful safe country and try to being in the Middle East which is pretty hairy.
Little Boy Soldiers and Thick As Thieves were superb and When You’re Young which was dedicated to the over 50s which was ninety nine percent of the crowd according to Hastings. The next four songs were done acoustically with both Foxton and Hastings grabbing a chair slowing things down a tad with Liza Radley, English Rose, Smithers-Jones and Private Hell. Hastings then said he had enough of being nice and let’s get going to which they went full throttle again going electric.
Down In The Tube Station At Midnight was a massive highlight and the crowd sing-a-long was fantastic. The band were really feeding off this energy which keep going with another massive hit That’s Entertainment. It might have been cold outside but Hastings said that it was still better than their summer going on to mention they had a very early flight out of Adelaide in the morning. The main set finished on Start and Strange Town.
There was a long pause before the band returned for an encore and Hastings commented that getting older they had to relieve themselves or piss themselves on stage. Wow! Great song selection with In The City, Girl On The Phone, Eton Rifles which got the crowd revved up followed by a promise that From The Jam would be returning next September which drew a huge applause. The night finished on Going Underground. Fantastic show and if there was a second I’d be going back for more. With the tour coming to a close make sure you don’t miss out and catch them if you can get a ticket.
Live Review By Rob Lyon