The Chords UK are bringing the streets of London to Las Vegas. After releasing latest LP Big City Dreams in February, the band will kick off its first U.S. tour since 2018 on May 31 at Downtown’s Taverna Costera before headlining a Mods Mayhem event in LA.
The album is a raucous mishmash of reggae, ska, punk and rock—a variety to be expected from a quintessential mod revival band. Singer and guitarist Chris Pope, the lone remaining original member, says the stylistic diversity of Big City Dreams was partly inspired by The Clash’s London Calling, with songwriting sourced from the city’s streets. “A lot of it’s really about characters that I’ve known or made up around London over the last 20, 30 years. … Storylines to reflect where I live and the time,” he says.
The Chords’ current lineup—Pope and three new bandmates on guitar, bass and drums—has been active since 2012, sometimes playing “old stuff” dating back to the late 1970s. The group has also churned out three albums and several singles over the past seven years. “I personally wouldn’t just get onstage for an hour and a quarter playing old songs,” Pope says. “It doesn’t do it for me.”
Carrying the mantle of “mod revival”—which took hold in London in the late ’70s, bringing back the sounds and clean-cut fashions of ’60s mods, and was quickly overshadowed by punk—can be a burdensome expectation. But Pope doesn’t pay much attention to the label.
“The whole essence of the mod style [is] not much different than what punks were doing. It’s just different clothes,” he says. “What the New Romantics were doing or even the grunge lot in the ’90s—everyone does the same thing, but wears different clothes to listen to music.”
Steeped in ’60s rock, soul and British pop-rock groups like The Kinks and The Who, Pope and the other original members of The Chords converged in 1978 alongside a countercultural explosion in London that fostered punk bands like the Sex Pistols and The Clash. By 1979, the teenage musicians were gigging, sharing stages with The Jam and The Undertones. In the span of about two years, the group recorded two BBC radio sessions, released the chart-topping singles “Maybe Tomorrow” and “Something’s Missing” off 1980 debut album So Far Away and split in 1981.
The band reunited in 2010 for the single “Another Thing Coming” and toured Australia and Japan in 2012, before rebranding as The Chords UK with Sandy Michie on guitar, Mic Stoner on bass and Kenny Cooper on drums.
Big City Dreams’ opening track, “Listen to the Radio,” references Pope’s youth in the ’70s and the “glorious” music he remembers from the airwaves at the time. In punk fashion, “tongue in cheek” lyrics in “Hey Kids! Come the Revolution” calls for a new social order, while “21st Century Girl” paints a lyrical picture of a carefree Gen Z-er over a ska beat: “She posts her life/Instagram and Facebook likes/A dance, a date/Nothing serious, get it straight.”
The band’s inaugural Vegas show will coincide with a 10-inch vinyl release of “Our World” from its 2018 album Nowhere Land.
THE CHORDS UK With The Rebel Set, TV Party, Cromm Fallon & The P200. May 31, 7:30 p.m., $5-$8. Taverna Costera, tavernacostera.com.
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