This week I got to see my favourite band play twice.  Their first UK shows in 24 years at The Roundhouse in Camden.  Usually things like this seem cheesy and like a cash grab for nostalgia, but they gave it their all.  Even if it is a cash grab.  Four men on stage playing perfect rock music.  No coloured lights, no pyrotechnics, just music.  I was going to take a load of cool pictures and write a review but in all honesty both shows passed by in a blur of happiness and I couldn’t even begin to put into words how good they were, so instead for this week’s Friday Tracks I’ve decided to dedicate a post to The Replacements.

I can, and given the opportunity will, say a lot about The Replacements.  The band that rejected stardom and praise in favour of self deprecation and a probably disdained (until recently) cult status.  They’re cooler than the other side of the pillow.  Formed in Minneapolis in 1979 in a basement, they have more songs that feel real, funny and sad, than probably anyone else.  From their seminal ‘Let It Be’ album, the last before they signed a major label and the penultimate album to feature founding Stinson brother Bob on lead guitar, Answering Machine is widely recognised as some of singer and main songwriter Paul Westerberg’s best work.

This is one of those perfect songs that encapsulates feeling stranded and lonely it in it’s rawest form.  Admittedly it’s from that beautiful time before mobile phones and the web of connection they’ve cast over the world, when you could only hope to catch someone’s fleeting attention on a tape recording left on their answering machine when they were out/ignoring you.  Hearing this song paints a picture in my mind of small towns, piled high with snow drifts where the only hope you have of a hot meal is a cheese burger with a lurid yellow cheese slice melted on top of it and a side of cardboard fries with an ombre of ‘cajun’ seasoning. 

Originally recorded as solo voice and guitar the official LP version is very good, however I think this version recorded at the University of Wisconsin is just a little better.  Released as part of a promotional EP for college radio called “Inconcerated Live” to help promote their second major label album ‘Don’t Tell a Soul” it opens with a drunkenly uttered “Okay, forgive me if I fuck this one up a little bit..” and you just know you’re in for something special.  The band deliver, the end of the song culminating with the energy of a jet fighter taking off.  Utter, real emotion comes through in this performance and if you can’t appreciate it I guess you should go back to listening to Ed Sheeran singing about love in mysterious ways or whatever.