Stiff Little Fingers show offered trip down memory lane and punk education

Hundreds of islanders packed into Mareel to hear veteran rockers Stiff Little Fingers unleash a stream of punk classics on Saturday night.

After support slots from the Wind-Up Projectiles and Dirty Lemons, Jake Burns and co. took to the stage to acclaim at around 9.45pm. They soon had the crowd pogoing down the front during a set packed with great numbers from the late 1970s including Wasted Life and Suspect Device.

The group raced through a powerful version of Alternative Ulster, the show’s second encore, to bring an end to what had been “a trip down memory lane for some, and an education for others” in the 500+ audience, in the words of this newspaper’s reviewer Stephen Gordon.

Less satisfactory, Mr Gordon pointed out, were Mareel’s bar arrangements. Many people found themselves queuing for 45 minutes to get a drink: “Another bar, even two, placed elsewhere in the building would placate the legions of moaning minnies.”

* For more photos and Stephen Gordon’s full review, see this Friday’s Shetland Times.