LIVE REVIEW: John Cooper Clarke, Mike Garry @ Fire Station, Sunderland (14.10.25)

One thing you miss when you only read or listen to John Cooper Clarke is just how skinny that man’s legs are. Part man, part flamingo, the world-renowned poet looks like he can barely hold his own weight upright, let alone stand and bounce from heeled boot to heeled boot for over an hour as he spits profanity-laden lyrics and rhyme from his special large print tome of self-penned poems.

But first: Mike Garry. The Mancunian poet, singer, musician, and all-round good guy didn’t come to play, he came to perform. His exploration of geopolitics and social troubles in the same breath as he mourned the passing of loved ones meant no one was safe from the misty eyes, but his charm and warm nature kept even the most touching topics light and accessible.The proportion of the audience who knew of his work before his set is unknown, but the queue at his merch table in the interval to grab a book or vinyl record from the man himself was exemplary of the hold Mike Garry had over his crowd.

John Cooper Clarke’s reputation preceded him; this is a man whose partying days are well and truly behind him, even if their effects will be felt for whatever years remain. Indeed, they left an undercurrent of morbidity throughout Johnny Clarke’s set. From the hard paper round that was his younger years to the recently diagnosed Alzheimer’s that leaves him stumbling over the words to Evidently Chickentown, JCC has never had the easiest nor quietest life. But still, with notebook in one hand and swaying microphone stand in the other, he grips his audience from the first moment to the last. He’s toured the globe ten (count ‘em) ten times, and while we don’t know how many more circumnavigations are left in his future, his work will still be ricocheting around the world long after he is able.