BOXSET REVIEW: Skids: The Saints Are Coming: Live And Acoustic 2007-2021 (Cherry Red Records)
Skids fans will be delighted with this new boxset, which includes six CDs of music – with two of the albums previously unreleased.
It collects four live shows from the reunited band, including one from their acoustic tour, plus their 2019 acoustic studio album Peaceful Times and a nine-track Radio Clyde session from 2007.
Formed in Dunfermline in 1977, Skids were Scotland’s most successful band of the punk era, enjoying three Top 40 albums and a handful of hit singles before splitting in 1982.
Singer Richard Jobson went on to form The Armoury Show and enjoy careers as a model and TV presenter, while guitarist Stuart Adamson formed Big Country, whose chart success dwarfed that of Skids.
They were always much more than a punk band, and that much is evident in this collection of some of their work since singer Richard Jobson, William Simpson and Mike Baillie reconvened in 2007.
Joined by Adamson’s Big Country bandmate Bruce Watson and his son Jamie on guitars, Skids initially reformed to play three gigs, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the group’s formation and as a final tribute to Adamson, who had died in 2001. It’s testament to his musicianship that it took two guitarists to fill his shoes.
The first disc here is a hometown show at the Alhambra in Dunfermline in March 2010, and the setlist reads like a ‘greatest hits’, full of singles like Masquerade, Working For The Yankee Dollar and Into The Valley.
There’s also some classic album cuts, like the excellent Melancholy Soldiers, Thanatos and The Olympian, plus fan favourite B-sides Out Of Town and Of One Skin.
Disc two is live at the Roundhouse in 2017, previously released as Live In London, from their 40th anniversary tour. Much of the set is the same, but they change things up a bit by including Dulce Et Decorum Est, Circus Games and a new song, A World On Fire, which would go on to be featured on 2018 album Burning Cities.
There’s a change of pace on disc three, which is the 2019 acoustic album Peaceful Times. At just 10 tracks it’s brief, but includes takes on new tracks A World On Fire, Kings Of The New World Order and Desert Dust, as well as some lesser-played older cuts like Blood And Soil and Fields, and a new song, Kreuzberg ’79.
The set is completed by a handful of oldies: Into The Valley, The Saints Are Coming, Animation and the always-welcome Hurry On Boys.
Disc four is another live set, recorded at The Sage Gateshead in 2019 and previously released as an ‘official bootleg.’ The most interesting of the 11 tracks is a version of Castles In Spain, a song by Jobson’s post-Skids band The Armoury Show.
Another ‘official bootleg’, volume two of Lockdown Live, recorded during the coronavirus pandemic of 2021, is disc five, and it’s a shame the hard-to-find volume one isn’t included too, particularly as it includes more songs.
Rounding the set off nicely is perhaps the most interesting disc here, a nine-track session recorded for Radio Clyde in 2007 which includes a cover of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s Vambo which you won’t find anywhere else.
It’s inevitable in a set of this nature that there’s some duplication; Skids’ biggest hit Into The Valley is included six times, and there are multiple versions of Masquerade, Charade, Animation, Yankee Dollar, and more.
But every disc is worth listening to, for the age-defying energy displayed on the electric shows and the stripped-back acoustic renditions which display the sheer quality of the songs.
The amount of duplication probably means it’s for hardcore fans only, but it’s still a very welcome addition to their canon of work. 8/10.
