The Streets’ 2002 debut ‘Original Pirate Material’ is one of those rare records that has a story attached for everybody that grew up with it as a soundtrack to their youth. They're the kind of stories that emit starry eyes at after parties and familiar tales of British adolescence. For me, it dates back to working in the warehouse of a long-shut supermarket during sixth form in the tiny northern town I grew up in. I’d already been to my first rave, holidayed in Ibiza (albeit with my family) and found which locals pubs were slightly looser on their ‘Think 25’ policy. Which is all to say that my eyes had been recently opened to the world beyond the small corner of Yorkshire I grew up in, and ‘Original Pirate Material’ documented many of the things I’d become excited about in early adult life because of that.
The record, which was on pretty much constant rotation in the warehouse amongst a group of people who prided themselves on disagreeing on music, introduced Mike Skinner as one of the most unique voices in British rap with the inimitable ability to soundtrack every important experience in the life of noughties British youth. Break ups, make ups, work, play, parties, geezers, bouncers, space and time, Einstein, European Bob, UK garage, Kronenberg, Carling, Vodka and snakebite.
Follow up ‘A Grand Don’t Come for Free’ landed two years later, with tracks like ‘Fit But You Know It’, ‘Dry Your Eyes’ and ‘Blinded By the Lights’ turning Skinner from cult hero to household name. The trio of albums that followed – 2006’s ‘The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living’, 2008’s ‘Everything is Borrowed’ and 2011’s ‘Computers and Blues’ – shifted Skinner’s gaze to celebrity culture and coming to terms with growing up, but never quite reached the dizzying heights of their predecessors.
Skinner said at the time that he hoped ‘Computers and Blues’, which came at the end of a five-album record deal, would be his last, singing “I’m packing up my desk/Put it into boxes/Knock out the lights/Lock the locks and leave” on ‘Lock the Locks’ towards the album’s close. But even as the final bars rang out on Skinner’s emotional The Streets farewell tour – which took in performances at festival goliaths Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds – it still felt like a project with unfinished business.
Six long years later, towards the back end of 2017, Skinner confirmed those sentiments when he announced The Streets’ first tour in seven years, which sold out within minutes last October. But unlike many reunions, which rely entirely on nostalgia to create a quick buck, The Streets’ return came along with new music, with Skinner and co. dropping five tracks since the news of their return broke, including the menacing ‘Boys Will Be Boys’.
After a short stint around Europe, The Streets hit the UK for a run of shows in Manchester, Glasgow and Leeds, as well as a homecoming in Birmingham, before closing out with three performances at the O2 Academy Brixton. On the first night, the energy in the room is palpable before The Streets even hit the stage, with wave after wave of tanked up fans flooding into the venue and engulfing the bars to fill up on giant two-pint beer cups.