Academy, Liverpool
Joe Strummer's 2002 demise put paid to any lingering talk of a Clash reunion, so it was perhaps inevitable that Mick Jones would eventually bow to nostalgia and reform his other famous group. Indeed, some argue that Big Audio Dynamite's 1980s-1990s stew of pop, rock, reggae, acid house and sampling was at least as ground-breaking. They are wrong, of course: others beat them to it. And in 2011, sampling Tarzan's howl in the middle of a pop song sounds superfluous, like window-dressing, which Jones seems to acknowledge when he chuckles: "Cue the helicopter noises. Haven't we had them twice already?"
Age may have rendered their experiments more clunky and withered a few band members, but wrinkly Jones still looks impossibly cool in his undertaker suit and gangster shades. He sings and plays guitar so wonderfully that, Gorillaz moonlighting notwithstanding, you wonder why he isn't forced – at gunpoint, if necessary – to occupy a stage more often. Equally, the sublime V Thirteen is an early reminder that BAD wrote some terrific songs.
The likes of A Party and Battle of All Saints Road – Jamaican reggae meets British pop – reflects the band's multi-cultural lineup, but some songs show their age. However, it's hard to deny the exuberant pop thrill of their singalong hits – Medicine Show, E = MC2, a roof-removing C'Mon Every Beatbox and The Bottom Line ("a dance to the tune of economic decline"), which sounds as relevant as ever.
"We're better now because we've brought something else to it – age and wisdom," chuckles Jones, in cheery mood throughout.
"Age and Norman Wisdom!" corrects sampler-toaster man Don Letts, and, on cue, the next song collapses halfway through.