It’s hard to believe that twenty eight years have passed since the debut album release from the Fun Lovin’ Criminals when Come Find Yourself took the music world by storm. The LP included some of their finest songs including The Fun Lovin’ Criminal, Scooby Snacks, Smoke ‘Em and King of New York, we would get to hear these tracks and many more at The Garage in Glasgow tonight. Over the past year there has been some tensions between Huey Morgan and what is left of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals after they booked a tour but left out the small detail that Huey wouldn’t be joining them on the tour, this prompted Huey to organize his own tour billing himself as THE Fun Lovin’ Criminal.
At dead on 8.30pm the lights went down as Frank Sinatra song New York, New York played over the PA system quickly followed by Morgan and his band taking to the stage amid loud cheers immediately playing crowd pleaser Fun Lovin’ Criminal as the opening track. The fans join in for the chorus “Stick ‘em up punk it’s the Fun Lovin’ Criminal”, Huey looks surprised by the reaction from the crowd, this was a bold choice of first track. All fourteen songs from the main set are FLC ones as the set continues with Loco and the first track from 1998 album 100% Colombian Back On The Block, the album title caused some controversy at the time with the Colombian government asking for the title to be changed … they refused. The crowd are very laid back tonight but show appreciation after each song and there are always a few chants of ‘Huey Huey’ between songs, it’s not long until we are into a batch of classic FLC tracks kicking off with Up On The Hill and King Of New York, Back On The Block is sounding as good tonight as it did all those years ago. Morgan then talks about doing a DNA test, he confirms that there is some Scottish in him, with a name such as Morgan that was obvious anyway!
Love Unlimited raises the noise levels once more as the mellow song begins “Barry White saved my life/And if Barry White saved your life or got you back with your ex-wife”, we are all singing along here with lots of heads nodding around the room. The story goes that the legendary Barry White used to come on to the stage with this song playing from the PA system, you can’t get a much bigger tribute that that. Born in New York City, Morgan was briefly involved in the criminal scene and was soon given a stark choice of going to prison or joining the marines … he chose the latter and hasn’t looked back. The next song brought the house down, Scooby Snacks borrows some lines from Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction and has absolutely everyone singing along to the lines “Running around robbing banks, all wacked off of Scooby Snacks”, Huey is grinning from ear to ear and looks like he is enjoying every moment of tonight’s gig in Glasgow. Smoke ‘Em keeps the energy high while Methadonia deals with the subject of depression and PTSD, the main set ends with Big Night Out and afterwards they leave the stage for a few minutes rest.
The five-track encore begins with Korean Bodega, a song Huey claims that he wrote when he was eleven or thirteen years old, it is a very easy chorus to sing along to which everyone does, this is followed by a few songs that Morgan released under the name of Huey and the New Yorkers. Shaniqua and Falling Into Me are taken from that 2012 album Say It To My Face, he has promised to bring these songs back for an upcoming solo project so this will be one to look forward to. It is a cover of an all-time classic song that ends the set as Louis Armstrong track We Have All The Time In The World ends what has been a trip down memory lane for us and also a memorable night of music all round. 9/10
Written by: Alan Brown
