From Rage Against the Machine to The Police, this has been one of the biggest years for rock-band reunions in some time. This is not always a good thing, of course, but in the case of Squeeze it worked well.
Last night at New York City's Beacon Theater they played an hour and a half set that kicked off with "Take Me, I'm Yours" and briskly browsed through the band's most popular tunes. Consisting of originals Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, John Bentley on bass (who was with the band in the early '80s, and players from Tilbrook's touring band on keyboards and drums, Squeeze seemed to be genuinely enjoying the reunion concert.
The one complaint I had (or maybe it's more than one) was that the show was maybe a little too brisk. There was minimal chatter with the audience, and when one song ended the band launched right into the next one. And since most Squeeze songs are quite short, the tunes just flew by, which brings up another thing: I'd wished the band would have expanded some of their songs, playing longer solos or adding new elements. Basically the songs sounded just as they did on the original LPs (yes, Squeeze's heyday was back in the age of vinyl).
But it was definitely an enjoyable show, and the rest of the crowd was eating it up. And unlike many concerts I've been to with bands from the '70s or '80s, in which the audience was full of gray-haired baby boomers, this one had a large number of people in their 20s or 30s. I guess Squeeze's brand of bright uptempo pop has a lot of fans among the younger generations.
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