AFTER having to postpone their December gig due to ill health Bruce Foxton and his band finally made it to Mr Kyps on Friday night and it turned out to be well worth the wait.

Touring the In The City album to mark the 35th anniversary of its release (although it’s now 36 years as pointed out by singer Russ Hastings) the first half hour of the set was a straight run through of the album.

It was great to hear some old favourites such as Non Stop Dancing and Time For Truth along with the title track and the crowd who had ventured out in the snow slowly warmed the place up.

If the atmosphere had been slightly muted up to now the first bars of Tube Station changed all of that. 

You can fit a fair number of classic three minute songs into a couple of hours and FTJ did a pretty good job of packing in as many as possible. David Watts, Going Underground, Eton Rifles and That’s Entertainment were joined by new tracks Number Six, Find My Way Home and Window Shopping and by now the temperature had soared and the crowd were jumping.

The main set built to a climax with Strange Town and When You're Young and then a rapid encore of Beat Surrender and the inevitable Town Called Malice.

It was a great night and the happy, mainly middle aged crowd, left with smiles on their faces and a morning of sore knees and aching backs to look forward to.