30 years on from their original dissolution, Magazine played at the Cambridge Junction on Wednesday night to an audience which predominantly looked like they caught the post-punk legends the first time around. Coming out on stage with a signboard carrying a typically oblique message, Howard Devoto, now 59, cuts as enigmatic and compelling a figure as ever.
But in truth, the early signs were not at all great - the sound mix for the opening moments of Definitive Gaze was horrible, with Jon White's bass threatening to overwhelm everything - yet whilst the sound was never truly perfect all night long, matters did improve considerably within the first few songs. Aside from the cutting wit of Devoto, the real star player of Magazine has always been keyboardist Dave Formula, and despite looking worryingly like he belonged in The Lancashire Hotpots, he didn't disappoint, displaying his full expressive range of sounds over four keyboards: elegaic on Parade, spooked out on Permafrost, and bonkers practically everywhere else.
The tour was in support of their fifth album No Thyself ("it was nothing, we had so many years to write it" joked Devoto on it being the band's first recording since 1981's Magic Murder And The Weather) and if nothing else, it was impressive to hear how authentically Magazine-esque the likes of The Worst of Progress... and Happening In English actually sound. Devoto's not lost his way lyrically either; Hello Mister Curtis is a typically acerbic homage to suicidal rock stars. They fit pretty well into the band's canon, but the band wisely chose not to overegg the pudding with new material, but rather sprinkle it like Hundreds-and-Thousands amidst classic material; the likes of Shot By Both Sides and set highlight The Light Pours Out Of Me from 1977 debut Real Life (in my mind one of the greatest musical documents of the original post-punk era) still pack a hefty punch.
Not all of Magazine's material has aged so gracefully; their tacky funk cover of Sly Stone's Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again) should be cast to the anals of history and left there. But when playing old and new material alike, Magazine remain a thrillingly odd, unique and indispensible player in the post-punk story.
