The Stranglers - Black & White WeekendinBlack 2011

This Stranglers convention was built around the band’s third album ‘ Black and White’ which they played in it’s near entirety. ‘Black And White’ was the Stranglers third album in a year and a ground breaking release in early 1978. Already argued is the fact that the album was the first post punk release, a real ground changer. It came out of punk and explored the new territory and was dark, stark, surreal and entering a new terrain with an intelligence and an aggression that retained a punk attack but dismantled the music and created something quite new.

It also had the best bass sound ever recorded but that’s another story.

The fact is Stranglers made this into pop music and the album was a big seller in 1978.

The band occasionally still play songs from the album in their set but this revisit of the album was the first time they had played some of the other songs for years or in some cases ever. What was most striking about the set was how little of the material had actually dated and the album’s stark vision of the future remains intact.
Looking forward to the March 2016 tour, when this will be played again.