The Streets review – semi-theatrical staging of A Grand Don’t Come for Free resurrects a British classic

By Peter Ross•The Guardian Music

Corn Exchange, Edinburgh With winningly deadpan delivery, Mike Skinner’s concept album about losing £1,000 behind a TV is performed in full with a formidable bandOn a stage in Edinburgh, thick with dry ice, a bus shelter materialises and a man in black steps out. Mike Skinner, AKA the Streets, has come to take us back in time. Pint in his right hand, mic in his left, he begins: “It was supposed to be so easy …” And just like that it’s 2004 again.Had he been trying to court a mass audience, Skinner wrote in his memoir, “I certainly wouldn’t have made a concept album about someone losing a thousand pounds down the back of the TV”. Yet that is indeed the premise of his 2004 album A Grand Don’t Come for Free, a British classic which, judging by the noisy Corn Exchange crowd, is loved by more than one generation. Continue reading...

Corn Exchange, Edinburgh
With winningly deadpan delivery, Mike Skinner’s concept album about losing £1,000 behind a TV is performed in full with a formidable band

On a stage in Edinburgh, thick with dry ice, a bus shelter materialises and a man in black steps out. Mike Skinner, AKA the Streets, has come to take us back in time. Pint in his right hand, mic in his left, he begins: “It was supposed to be so easy …” And just like that it’s 2004 again.

Had he been trying to court a mass audience, Skinner wrote in his memoir, “I certainly wouldn’t have made a concept album about someone losing a thousand pounds down the back of the TV”. Yet that is indeed the premise of his 2004 album A Grand Don’t Come for Free, a British classic which, judging by the noisy Corn Exchange crowd, is loved by more than one generation.

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