Skunk Anansie have been one of those bands for me. Important and personal. They emerged back in 1994 when I was in high school, still pre-formed and impressionable. I don't remember first hearing them – but I've always loved them intensely.
Tonight is the final date of their European greatest hits tour. The Brixton Academy location is especially poignant as this is where Skin (Deborah Dyer) is from. "It's good to be back in Brixton" she grins, flashing her enormous white teeth. To the utter delight of a generation of teenagers – now all grown up – Skunk Anansie reformed this year. This is their first tour for eight years - and they play like they've never been away. Skin bursts onstage covered in a mass of gold foil. She jumps around for a good few minutes before even showing her face. Whipping off the huge pompom with a flourish, she bares her familiar skinhead and enormous grin. The crowd goes berserk.
During 'Weak' Skin comes down to the barrier and proceeds to walk into the crowd, her silver jump suit glittering as thousands of hands support the tread of her Nike's. The crowd is jovially moshing – and because everyone is loving it so much the elbows to the face don't even really hurt. Most people are singing – most people are singing every word. During 'Hedonism' you can barely hear her voice due to the thousands of others joining it.
They play all the classics and their three new songs from the Greatest Hits Album 'Smashes and Trashes' (and a new one which isn't on that album). Singing at tops of our voices along with one of our heroines, I am actually 16 again. Skin is absolutely AMAZING. What a voice. What a woman.
They dedicate new track 'Squander' to their 'amazing manager'. And then Skin invites the fans to the stage. One girl won't actually stop kissing her. She climbs onto the bass drum, gathers the fans beneath her and leaps into their arms.
And then they leave the stage. Obviously that's not it, there's no way we're letting them leave yet - and they still haven't done 'Secretly'. The crowd won't shut up and Skin keeps peeping from behind a curtain, checking on the adoration with her irrepressible grin. They don't leave us hanging for long. They saunter back on stage, swathed in hysterical cheering, and begin 'Secretly', the first orchestral chords producing extremely emotional cheering.
"I've been biding my time. Been so subtly kind.
I've got to think so selfishly 'cause you're the face inside of me.
I've been biding my days. Evidently it pays."
As the four members of the band gather together centre stage, smiling out into the adoring crowd, it's glaringly obvious that they are delighted to be back where they belong. And tearfully, everyone in the audience agrees.
Lowri Clarke
Photographs by Daniel Regan
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