Photo by Catherine Lewis

Review by Catherine Lewis

Political activism is expected from British singer/songwriter Billy Bragg, which is why so many listeners were surprised by the mellowness of his latest album, Tooth & Nail. His concert last night at the Birchmere showed off both sides of his catalogue, from the fiery pro-union number, “There Is Power in a Union” to the beautifully somber love song, “Swallow My Pride”. Bragg even mirrored those two extremes with his choices of Woody Guthrie covers, ranging from the politically-charged “All You Fascists” to the sweeter love song “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key.” Bragg set both of these lyrics to music in collaboration with the band Wilco on the Mermaid Avenue albums.

But Bragg’s own tunes were the highlight of the night, especially when he traded his acoustic guitar for an electric. The passionate “There Will Be a Reckoning” and emotion-drenched “Tank Park Salute” were among the set’s best numbers, as was a three-song interlude mid-set where Bragg’s four-piece band left the stage for him to perform solo. In the rest of the set, Bragg’s band added a rich texture, from the pedal steel on the bluesy “Over You” to the striking harmonies on the twangy “You Woke Up My Neighbourhood.”

In concert, Bragg always seems to have one hot issue on his mind, and at this show, that issue was universal healthcare. He introduced the Woody Guthrie song “I Ain’t Got No Home” by pointing out that the line that stood out most to him was that the wife of the protagonist died due to lack of healthcare.

Bragg also touched on gay marriage, mentioning Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who recently changed his mind on gay marriage when his son came out. He talked about Margaret Thatcher and how she left office in 1990. “Her own party decided they were going to get rid of her. That’s her real legacy: her own party came to the same conclusion that the rest of us had come to a long, long, long time ago — that she was the most divisive Prime Minister in the 20th century.” And he talked about the British National Party, the far right-wing political party in England whose rise to power he personally (and successfully) fought against in his hometown of Barking.

He didn’t just talk about politics, either. He spent a lot of time talking about Woody Guthrie and imagining how to make the song “My Flying Saucer” sound like a “supersonic boogie.” (It involves a fantastical change of history in which Guthrie didn’t die of Huntington’s Disease and instead plugged in an electric guitar at a folk festival years before Dylan did.)

But more than just talking, Bragg played music, dropping 21 songs in over 2 hours. And as politically outspoken as he is, he closed the night with a sentiment that transcended party lines: “The enemy of all of us who want to make the world a better place is cynicism—our own cynicism,” he remarked. “The only true antidote to cynicism is activism. That is how the world changes. That is the only way we’re ever going to get that great leap forward.” From there, Bragg launched into “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward” followed by the raucous and barely-containable energy of “Help Save the Youth of America”.