Billy Bragg
Album: Live At The Union Chapel CD/DVD
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Tracks: Loads
Website: http://www.billybragg.co.uk

Billy Bragg has never exactly been shy about playing live - from street corners to stadia, if there's a rabble to be roused, Bill's the man to rouse it. He can also cut it on the tender stuff as well, bringing village halls, festival mosh pits and grand theatres alike to a state of hushed attention with the right tune at the right time.

So why has it taken him 30 years to release a live album? Not that I've spent a huge amount of time pondering it, but the question has puzzled me at various intervals over the last three decades and although there have been bootlegs, lots of them - in fact he used to joke that nobody danced at his gigs because everyone had a backpack with a microphone poking out the top of it - there's never been an official live album. Until now.

And maybe the reason it has taken so long is that Live At The Union is much better as a DVD than it is as a CD. Back in the day, if I'd paid 'No More Than £4.99' for a vinyl record of a Bragg gig that omitted the chat (and half the songs because of the limited running time) it would have been a bit of a disappointment. As it is, even with the expanded run time of a compact disc, there are no introductions and little sense of the genuine warmth that exists between Bragg and his audience.

Over on the DVD is the evidence of just how well the congregation was ministered to that Wednesday night last June at the Union Chapel. Although the set is interspersed with interview footage it enhances rather than interrupts the overall experience. Bill is expansive and expressive in word and deed, self-deprecating, impassioned, stirring, ironic, a bit sarcy and, at times, as angry as ever with the way of the world.

He's also a great entertainer. There's a beard and some neo-cowboy clothes, but he's in the best voice of his career and despite his protestations to the contrary, plays a mean guitar that serves his songs well. He has a handsome repertoire in which the songs turned by the master craftsman heard on the the very fine Tooth & Nail album sit in absolute harmony with those cast by the firebrand but confused-in-love polemicist that made Talking With the Taxman About Poetry - the Byrds-flavoured rebirth of Ideology that opens the set is a peerless statement of intent.

Elsewhere, the gritty disenchantment of Woody Guthrie's I Ain't Got No Home is only heightened by Bragg's middle-aged articulation of it, while the seething fury of Never Buy the Sun reminds us all about arguably the darkest episode of a very dark time. The Workers Playtime highlight, Valentine's Day Is Over, is more than 25 years old but can still play havoc with the tear ducts and his tribute to his late father, Tank Park Salute, resonates profoundly with us all, whether fathers and sons or mothers and daughters.

There are lighter moments, the cheeky, chirpy, but oh-so true Handyman Blues, a welcome revival of You Woke Up My Neighbourhood and the rollicking update of Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards that closes the set - all gladden the heart and fortify the soul.

Delve into the extras and you'll find the live second encore of his debut release, Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy delivered in its 17-minute entirety, promos vids for No One Know Nothing Anymore and Handyman Blues (with outtakes), a generous sprinkling revealing live cuts from the Lexington pub and Wembley Arena and a stack of Tooth & Nail press kit interviews.

Oh, and there are some natty postcards included as well in a package that doesn't actually list a running time, but if it did, it should simply say 'ages'.

There may well have been other complete shows this good in the Bragg gigography, but this the one for which posterity pressed 'Play' and I reckon we should all be pretty happy about that.

Nick Churchill
http://www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk