Spear of Destiny at JPC Stowmarket May 2025

Spear of Destiny, Janus Tour 2025

John Peel Centre for The Arts, Stowmarket - 1st May 2025

The impossibly handsomest boy of the post-punk scene was looking positively cherubic as he took the stage to plug in his lead at The John Peel Centre on May Day 2025.  The young man who looked like the son of a Greek God in 1983 is 68 years old now and he’s still looking good, the hair curl still with us. 

Kirk Brandon’s Spear of Destiny are back to a six-piece band, he’s still got his big guitar, a grand piano of a guitar, there’s the saxophone blended into the constant guitar ( as found on The Stooges second album Funhouse, released in 1970) , the slightly incongruous ‘muso’ lead guitar, the keyboards and the rhythm section, the driving force of this show.

 

The crowd, standing (thank goodness) are an assortment of the committed, the curious and the ambivalent.  T-shirts on show include Spear of Destiny’s latest promoting Janus - the new recordings of old songs rejected by the record label of that time  – a fresh out of the bag Jack The Lad number, and a drunk guy trolling the crowd and the band with his t-shirt slogan I prefer their old stuff.

 

Spear of Destiny, nor predecessors Theatre of Hate grabbed no more than my fleeting attention when pictures of Kirk Brandon started to appear in the NME.  I knew his name, but not his sound.  The obliqueness of the band names was possibly beyond me at that age.  There was a lot of aggression about in the early 1980s: police violence, the uprising in Toxteth, Handsworth, Lewisham, St Paul’s, Brixton, football violence, just being on the street as a young adult was a little scary most of the time.  As a result, I didn’t get the appeal of associating hate with music, whether ironic, or not.  I have always considered Kirk Brandon’s brands to be music biz productions, rather than real punk.  What I learned in the subsequent forty years was that Brandon's music had built and retained a loyal following.   I jumped at the chance to put my decades long disinterest to one side and head down to the John Peel Centre for Creative Arts, Stowmarket, hoping to be able to write that I cannot believe that I missed this band originally. 

 

Punk had actually come and gone and the popular music ship was sailing toward Duran Duran’s zenith, four good looking boys, not just the one, with all the plastic appeal of New Romanticism, when Spear of Destiny launched in 1983.  It struck me at this gig particularly, how segmented the music industry always is.  Not only each music weekly rag, aimed then at distinct market tastes and therefore segments of the record buying populace, but the bands being shaped to suit each segment.  Timing was everything, sound and looks (and locks) followed.  Spear of Destiny were post-punk, pre-drum machine loud boys, with increasingly personal, rather than political songs. Yes, love and all that, not outrage and bluster of the original punk rebels.  It turned out that despite Thatcher’s help, politics didn’t sell too well and by the time love found its voice, others were turning to new, more romantic songs.

 

Given the age of Brandon and his assembled musicians in 1983 it would be hard to deny that Gary Glitter and the Glitter Band were not early influences.  Spear of Destiny lean on a drum-heavy sound, with long low guitar chords, a saxophone and a line in choruses that edge toward football terrace lyricism.  All good in the right time and place, with grown up lyrics.  The relatively recent sound of Kasabian, with the shouty chorus lines owes a lot to Spear of Destiny and the Glitter Band too.

Tonight, at the John Peel Centre, Spear of Destiny’s sound is solid, a sonic wall of it.  I am reminded of several bands who work up a musical, guitar-based hypnotic drone to their music, not least The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Stooges, or even Status Quo.  Here the drummer’s role is so important, the heavy clever rhythms in a mid-tempo can become hypnotic, but it is a tricky line to negotiate.  Too much of the same can become plain.  Spear of Destiny were heading that way, when lo and behold two absolutely cracking tracks jumped up out of the set list. 

Drummer Phil Martini revels in the responsibility he is given to underpin the band.  His drumming is amped up to the max, so that every hard beat is felt.  Brandon’s voice is impressive too.  He sings with controlled passion.  Undoubtedly, he feels things deeply and that comes across loud and clear.  What this gig needs is variety and after a number of songs that have more than satisfactorily branded the Spear of Destiny template on our ear drums, the sound of something evoking a rolling Irish ballad lands. March or Die was quite wonderful.  We are half an hour into the set and I am beginning to enjoy this gig.

 

The highlights of the set were Whole World Waiting, the thumping Embassy Song, (which wouldn’t have gone amiss if sung by Adam Ant) and March or Die, which is a superb number.  I have linked here to the You Tube recording by Ian Eatwell of March of Die from the Janus Tour stop at Brudenell Social Club in Leeds,  23rd April 2025.

If you are thinking of heading to one of the Spear of Destiny gigs on this extensive tour, I recommend it for a night out with your mates.  Bone up on the chorus lyrics and join in as necessary, but don’t expect to be taken off down any novel musical rabbit holes.  Kirk Brandon does what he does.  He has a loyal following who positively celebrate his work on stage.  Spear of Destiny did not cut through to me in the 1980s and forty years later it was the songs March of Die and Spirits that held most appeal for me, two numbers with a more Gaelic feel to them, ageless songs in that respect.  I left wondering where Kirk Brandon and his musical career might have gone had he spun out that musical yarn a little further. 

Without a support band, Spear of Destiny had a 90-minute unbroken session to spin out.  I wonder if a shorter set of greater variety would have been a better idea.  Compressing a few crowd pleasers into an hour, with some previously unreleased Brandon personal favourites might have sustained interest better.  The audience had a few individuals who were able to sing along during the encore when Kirk lovingly left them the space, but most of the hall were observers.  A couple of lads raised their arms and enjoyed some chorus parts, but it was a Thursday night in Stowmarket, in the heart of Suffolk, where bungalows are on the market for £800,000 and all streets are named The Street.  Generating a home end atmosphere is not the easiest item on the to-do-list here.  Despite Kirk Brandon sincerely doing his thing and his band doing their work with enthusiasm, this was a slow night for post-punk’s prettiest star.

Spencer Ide

1st May 2025

Stowmarket