Punk's 25th anniversary has seen celebrations and media back-slaps, but, as usual, the Stranglers have not been invited to the party. The outsiders of punk have spent years getting up the noses of even those who built careers around getting up people's noses. Guildford's finest brawled with the Sex Pistols, provoked riots in France and once strapped critic Antoine de Caunes upside down to the Eiffel Tower. And yet Pete Waterman is not alone in rating them the second-best British pop band behind the Beatles, and audiences still flock to see them.
Even now, the Stranglers have not lost their sense of mischief: playing an opera house is a typical gesture. The ornate decorations honour Mozart and Wagner, who must look down with horror at these ageing punks with their subsonic bass rumble and songs about sex, solar power, sex, imperialism, sex and tramps. The band's music - recently in the charts with another greatest-hits collection - has not dated, while the band members themselves have the enduring appeal of cinematic villains. Dave Greenfield plays keyboards with one hand while quaffing vodka with the other; dastardly bass behemoth Jean-Jacques Burnel karate-kicks across the stage.
Time has not withered them because the Stranglers always were horrible, sinister old men. Drummer Jet Black, who plays as if wired up to a respirator, was virtually pensionable in 1978. However, vocalist Paul Roberts provided new blood when he replaced Hugh Cornwell in 1990, and they have a new guitarist, skinhead Baz (presumably no Strangler would address someone as Barry).
Much of the set revolves around old classics, although the more politically incorrect stuff went along with Cornwell. The notable exception is Peaches, currently featuring in an Adidas advert and perhaps the only pop song ever to feature the words "clitoris" and "charabanc" - which may be why Burnel can't play it with a straight face.
Lest things get too cabaret, a clutch of new songs justifies Robert's shout that they are "not the bloody Barron Knights!" In the closing melee, middle-aged skinheads waddle on to the stage. But this time, nobody leaves the stage minus their underpants or ends the night in the cells.
· At the Academy, Bristol, tonight. Box office: 0870 771 2000. Then touring.
