It’s difficult to believe, but next year, Stars Of CCTV, the inaugural album from Staines indie rock four-piece Hard-Fi will be twenty years old. The record, which was shortlisted for the 14th Mercury Music Prize, was one of the most assured debut albums I’ve ever heard and was a springboard for the band into post Britpop superstardom.
Variations on the CCTV logo image from the cover (a piece of marketing brilliance) were absolutely everywhere in post-millennium surveillance state Britain, and for a while at least, so were Hard-Fi. In May 2006, the band played five consecutive sell-outs at Brixton Academy. They remain the only artist to achieve that feat off of a debut album release. Two more albums followed; Once Upon A Time In The West in 2007, and Killer Sounds in 2011.
And then, Hard-Fi went dark. A short break became a long one, and in time the fanbase couldn’t ignore they were in the territory of a fully-fledged hiatus. As the years rolled and the silence endured, it was collectively assumed the band were done.
The Camera is Back!
But in the Spring of 2022, the CCTV mysteriously reappeared in the capital’s subways, and with it the caption: “London 01.10.22”. A reunion? A long-overdue reunion? As a member of the fanbase, I felt like dancing in the street. The reunion gig (Forum, Kentish Town) was epic and spawned a full tour the following year from Staines’ finest export.
And now the band are back again; with another Autumn tour and an EP entitled Don’t Go Making Plans, Hard-Fi’s first new music in ten years. I catch them on the second night of the tour at the White Rock Theatre in Hastings. The White Rock opened in 1927 and is a lovely building, though it has more the whiff of a venue ideally suited to a Showaddywaddy Summer Season than it does a host for a mid-noughties indie-rock band. This, added to the fact that Hastings appears to be closer to France than to any conurbation of note in the UK, could have made it a difficult place to fill.
Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings
But by the time Hard-Fi walk out, there are a commendable number of people filling the floor and the balcony. The band open as they always have (and as I suspect they always will) with Middle Eastern Holiday, second track from Stars Of CCTV and a brilliant political observation regarding the insanity of war in Iraq. At the time, it was commended by Billy Bragg, a man who knows a thing or two about brilliant political observations.
As the show unfolds, it becomes clear that this is an evening designed to deliver maximum nostalgic reminiscence and enjoyment. There are no obscure deep cuts here. Every tune is a maximum banger and the band know what people want.
In the first half, other big standouts from Stars Of CCTV whizz by. Gotta Reason and Tied Up Too Tight are excellent and Better Do Better is outstanding. This latter tune is a song about an unfaithful ex-lover reappearing on the doorstep and seeking forgiveness… but not finding it. The lyrics are visceral. I don’t know if it’s actually autobiographical, but if so, it sure involved a world of pain. Close to twenty years later, frontman Richard Archer still spits the lyric: “Your face makes me want to be sick” with such venom he practically showers the first few rows of the audience.
Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings
No less than nine tunes tonight are from Stars Of CCTV leaving the other two albums from Hard-Fi v1.0 receiving only a minor airing. That said, the songs from Killer Sounds and Once Upon A Time In The West deliver the very best those records had to offer.
From the former, the group play Stay Alive and Good For Nothing, two tunes that really fly. From the latter, there is just one song: Surburban Knights. It comes three-quarters of the way through the set and by this point, the crowd are more than happy to indulge the band in the community singing that the song so richly deserves.
Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings
Of course, the new EP is featured and all four tracks from it get played. To keep things simple, they come one after another and it’s apparent just how well they sit with the preceding material. Hard-Fi might have been silent for eight years, but Archer still knows how to knock out a tune. He takes the opportunity to revisit some old themes too. Don’t Go Making Plans is a political song lamenting the then Tory government butchering the Public Order Act to clamp down on legitimate protest. Billy would be proud. Meanwhile, Don’t Need You is another lambasting of a partner in a failed relationship.
Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings
We close as we began, with some of the finest cuts from Stars Of CCTV. Richard picks up a melodica (keyboard with a mouthpiece to the uninitiated) and anybody who has seen the band before knows what comes next. Cash Machine, an anthem for the permanently impoverished, is a brilliant piece of song writing. It has lyrics just crying out to be belted back to the stage, and belting them back to the stage is exactly what the fine people of Hastings do.
Hard To Beat, an effervescent tale about getting lucky in a nightclub, finishes the show. It’s such an outrageously catchy tune and it must be fantastic knowing you’ve got a song like this in your back pocket to close out a gig before walking off to wild applause.
Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings
The stage lights come up again, but Ross Phillips (guitar), Kai Stephens (bass) and Steve Kemp (drums) get an extended break because Archer comes up to the mic in isolation. He plays Move On Now, the only real ballad from Stars Of CCTV. On the record it’s a beautiful solo piano/solo vocal arrangement. In the White Rock Theatre it’s a solo electric guitar/several hundred vocal arrangement.
Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings
The rest of the band return for a sweet rendition of the Stars Of CCTV title track and the performance finally closes with all-out party anthem Living For The Weekend. It must be fantastic knowing that having already blown your cookies twenty minutes ago with a tune like Hard To Beat, you’ve still got a song like this in your back pocket to close out a gig before walking off to wild applause.
Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings
It’s been another joyous night, made all the more special because it’s not one that a few years ago I could have ever expected to see. So, what follows next? With new music in the air, is the Don’t Go Making Plans EP the precursor to a fourth Hard-Fi album? I surely hope so. And with the twentieth anniversary of Stars Of CCTV on the horizon, might there be a celebratory tour? We’ll just have to sit tight and find out.
The remaining dates on the current Hard-Fi tour are:
NOVEMBER
Tue 19th – Portsmouth, Guildhall
Thu 21th – Cardiff, Tramshed
Fri 22nd – Wolverhampton, Wulfrun
Sat 23rd – Nottingham, Rock City
Mon 25th – Glasgow, Garage
Tue 26th – Sheffield, The Leadmill
Wed 27th – Manchester, Ritz
Fri 29th – Leeds, Stylus
Sat 30th – London, Roundhouse
The Roundhouse is sold-out but limited tickets remain for the other venues and can be obtained via the Hard-Fi website. The band are on Facebook, Instagram and X.
Live review of Hard-Fi at The White Rock Theatre on 16th November 2024. Words and photography by Simon Reed.
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