Jah Wobble
Exchange, Bristol
16th May 2024
The seismic bass of Jah Wobble shakes the foundations of Bristol’s Exchange as he brings the Metal Box Rebuilt in Dub tour to town. Elfyn Griffith feels the vibrations.
Jah Wobble has “..a job of work to do”, he proclaims right from the off tonight. But first “If you’re English can we have a moments uncomfortable silence”. Comedy silence over, the bass maelstrom begins.
John Wardle and his fine band – indeed genuine Invaders of the Heart – then get on with a most delightful evening’s work. Named Jah Wobble after Sid Vicious’s slurred pronunciation of his name back in the punk days, Wobble was the original bassist in Public Image with John Lydon after the Sex Pistols imploded in 1978, his deeply resonant modal bass lines providing the signature for PiL’s uniquely fractured improvisational sounds.
Since his two year tenure with Public Image Wobble has followed his own highly innovative path over the decades, experimenting with a variety of musical influences but always with his distinctive bass leading the way, holding up the various structures.
His own take on PiL’s second album, 1979’s Metal Box, is a case in point. He orchestrates – and this is precisely what he does, with his stage instructions and stop/start effects – his brilliant array of musicians into a superb two hour set here with random bursts of his earthy humour thrown in. It’s human and warm. And even when it veers perilously into jamming prog territory at times, it finds its way back into a mesmerising pulse which is hard not to be impressed by.
It starts with the throbbing discordance of Albatross, Wobble quavering ‘only the lonely’ Lydon-style at its close, and the fast funk of Memories with guitar mayhem from former Banshees axeman John Klein (doing the late Keith Levene proud) and regular Invader Martin Chung, the emotive jazz keys of George King and sharp drumming of Marc Layton-Bennett, the bass holding the jigsaw together. As with much of the lyrics Wobble reads them in a melodramatic style as opposed to the spiked ubersarc of Lydon. ‘Reverse affirmations’, as he calls them.
The sparse, free form yet tightly loose The Suit follows, and then a long spoken intro from Shakespeare’s Richard the Third, with the Wobblism of ‘For I am an ugly cunt’ enhancing the script before seguing into Poptones. It’s inventive, glorious and messy. A spoken word, dramatically-intoned, lyric, a short reggae interlude, and back into the spiral, a keyboard break into prog territory and back to the groove.
Fodderstomp goes down the same path after a great funk opening with frenetic guitar and house keys, Wobble breaking off on kettle drums at one point, and then it goes down the rabbit hole of jamming before getting itself together for a tight soaring climax.
The highlight bonus track, the searing attack of Public Image again starts on a new coating, words recited rather than spat, guitar cascading in gloriously, great building rhythm before going into overdrive. Then stop. Wobble asks Andrew the sound engineer to ‘turn the bass up with a big fuck off delay’. Dub has entered the house. Public Image continues in heavy dub style. Trousers flap with the vibrations.
Careering is performed in powerhouse careening dub delight, and Wobble takes to his armchair as he did at the start of the set to power Swan Lake’s inventive pulsar from deep.
“You could only do this type of gig in Bristol,” he says, alluding to this city’s love of all things dub, “I’m not fucking abaht, right let’s get fucking serious!”. Andrew is ordered to turn the bass up to even more trouser-shaking velocity and the last number, Graveyard, is pure orchestrated brilliance. Shotgun drumming, heavier than heavy bass and each guitar chord picked out. The room shakes.
“That’s a fucking happening!” says an elated Wobble at the end.
Follow Jah Wobble on Jah Wobble and Facebook
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Words by Elfyn Griffith. Elfyn tweets here
Photos by Oliver Riddoch.
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