Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart: Experts at their craft

Hare and Hounds, Birmingham, 9 November 2025

Apparently, not even a miserable, wet, rainy Sunday in Birmingham can prevent an abundant crowd from turning out to see Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart. The venue is packed with anticipation: the audience knows Jah Wobble – renowned former bassist of post-punk band Public Image Ltd – and his merry band of collaborators (the Invaders of the Heart) are bound to put on a superb show.  

Fighting their way through the crowd to emerge on stage in a smoky haze of blue and red, Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart take their places on stage. Without any introduction, the band launches into their first track, ‘Memories’, to which the crowd responds with rhythmic sway and a knowing cheer – clearly, they approve.  

The delivery of his lyrics is almost spoken, peppered with a fantastic balance of abstraction and irony

Nestled deep within the pounding drums and soaring guitar sits Jah Wobble, cradling his bass and strumming away – the hypnotic groove of his signature low-end riffs instantly recognisable, commanding the crowd from his seat with a knowing look, almost as if a king surveying his kingdom. 

As the opening track comes to a close, Jah Wobble rises up to meet the mic, greeting Birmingham (“a warm city, a friendly city”) before wasting no time getting stuck into an incredibly varied selection of tracks, many from his time in Public Image, as well as a fair few Invaders of the Heart originals (a highlight of which was ‘Visions of You’, from the band’s 1991 album, Rising Above Bedlam).  

The delivery of his lyrics is almost spoken, peppered with a fantastic balance of abstraction and irony – he is a visionary artist, yet remains a Brit, and so is inevitably prone to tongue in cheek banter and self-deprecation. For example, during a brief interlude whilst all his bandmates are busying themselves tuning their instruments, Jah Wobble turns to the crowd and begins to recite, from memory, the opening soliloquy of Shakespeare’s Richard III. At first the audience seems perplexed, taken aback by this sudden switch in register, but as he goes on, becoming more and more animated with each line, the crowd is transfixed, both by such a feat of memory but also by the sheer energy of his performance.  

He effortlessly toes the line between pretension and comedy, constantly walking the tightrope between frank sincerity and zany abstraction

He works himself up into a frenzy, getting to the point where he is almost shrieking the lines, and then suddenly, he just stops, and the tone shifts. Now he speaks of a “drive to the forest in a Japanese car, the smell of rubber on country tar”, instantly recognisable as the opening lyrics to the Public Image track ‘Poptones’ and delivered with a steely, very deliberate calm, in unbelievable contrast to the frantic recital that had been going on not ten seconds earlier. 

As the band behind him joins back in, the fans around me respond with a wry chuckle – this is what Jah Wobble does, he effortlessly toes the line between pretension and comedy, constantly walking the tightrope between frank sincerity and zany abstraction.  

Up until this point in the gig, Jah Wobble has remained entirely stationary, only extending himself so far as to move from chair to microphone and back. However, as ‘Poptones’ edges into its crescendo, he begins to sway ever so slightly from side to side, holding out an outstretched arm as if to conduct the band behind him, gesturing to each musician, as if urging them to play the track’s refrain even louder, even more furiously, with even more burning passion. 

They play with such an unbridled joy that you feel like you are intruding on a private moment

The skill of the band is quite remarkable, not only in the quality of their playing, but also in the sheer variety of their musicianship, able to range from Jah Wobble’s classic dub-centric punk tracks, to more fragile, transcendent moments of introspection where George King’s keyboard comes to fruition, even managing a rock-infused rendition of the classic ballet ‘Swan Lake’. The band takes on these interludes with such freedom and enthusiasm, you cannot help but feel almost guilty for watching: they play with such an unbridled joy that you feel like you are intruding on a private moment for the band, as if a fly on the wall in one of their jam sessions. 

The gig ends in a swirling cacophony, with Jah Wobble calling out to the engineers at the back of the crowd: “let’s give it everything with the big stereos, lots of bass; let’s try make the sound go behind people’s heads, [and] make them go fucking mental”. And with that, the rhythm of his bass begins the reverberate around the venue, making the very ground shake beneath our feet.  

My final image is of Jah Wobble bounding around the stage, slapping away at his guitar, crying into the microphone with a guttural, almost growling call, begging for his bass to be turned up, with the Invaders of the Heart all gathered round him, playing as if their lives depend on blowing the drums out of their speakers. 

The gig was sensational, and it was an honour to see someone so proud doing what he does best.

★★★★