The Meffs album launch with Charlie Harper, Kingston College
THE MEFFS / CHARLIE HARPER – ‘Business’ album launch gig at Kingston College, Saturday 12th Sept 2026.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know about this gig 24 hours before. An old friend offered me a ticket and with the addition of Charlie Harper to the bill it turned into an easy ‘yes’.
You can’t review a Charlie Harper set without mentioning two things. First he’s been playing in the veteran punk band UK Subs since its inception in the seventies. Second, he’s 82! As a contemporary of the Rolling Stones early days he has an inbuilt love of rock’n’roll. So what we get tonight is a stripped back acoustic sound and plenty of familiar songs to anyone who bought early Subs singles. Is it the best I’ve ever seen him? Well quite clearly not. Like me, he was only invited to the gig 24 hours before. He does just fine though, muscle memory gets him through the first songs with relative ease and then things step up a gear when he is joined by his wife Yuko. She takes over guitar duties and to see them chatting between songs was, well, the only word I can use is ‘sweet’. ‘CID’ sounds just great and then there’s the inevitable ‘Warhead’ by which time the crowd have understood their part and join in enthusiastically. Did I mention the fact that he’s 82? Amazing really.
Watching in the wings while Charlie is on stage was Lily Hopkins, singer guitarist with The Meffs. It’s clear there’s a bond between the two artists with both enthusing about each other. The Meffs are here tonight to promote their new album ‘Business’ and Lily explains they are going to play it in full and in order. Only trouble is it’s so new they are not sure of the song order so end up borrowing a copy of the album from a crowd member to use as an impromptu set list. Every song is carefully explained before it starts with diatribes ranging from how bad the rock’n’roll business is to asking us to check on each other’s mental health. It’s quite a start / stop way of doing things which is fine when seeing it for the first time but I’d imagine it might get tedious if it was done every night. The good news is that the new album is both angry and more raucous than previous releases. The explanations definitely help understand what it’s all about more than the brief song titles like ‘Law’, ‘Fight’ and ‘Disorder’. . The band finish with some of their best known songs from their earlier catalogue, X-Ray Spex’s ‘Identity’ and a largely forgettable version of the Prodigy’s ‘Breathe’ . They end on a high though, with the refrain of ‘Broken Britain, Broken Brains’ giving the crowd something to think about on the way out of the colleges rather swish office like atrium.