Billy Bragg – Live At The Union Chapel
Alejandro De Luna
Review originally published for Gigslutz, 13/04/2014
It has been more than 70 years since Woody Guthrie changed the direction of popular music when he used the singing voice, an acoustic guitar, and his sanity as a weapon to spread a mindset that slammed injustice and the disparities of an oppressive western society. With the path set, thoughtful pupils with the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Joe Strummer, continued with this humble but thoughtful mission of raising the voice against inequity.
Reinforced by the ideals of his intellectual mentor and the courage of the other apprentices, Guthrie´s latest legitimate heir, Billy Bragg – one of the most authentic and coherent minds in Britain – has been one of the wise commanders in the United Kingdom that favours the unprotected sons of our cracked economic and political system. After an unsuccessful attempt with a punk band in the late 70s, a “successful” failure on joining the British army in his youth, and concerned by how the “leaders” of the system moved their pieces, Bragg had witnessed some of the most outrageous situations that detonated his incessant need to raise the voice: the ashes of decadence from the industrial revolution, Thatcher´s ultra conservative political legacy, the Cold War and other tons of injustice that could fill this page.
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