ON THE anniversary of Lenin’s birth, The 100 Club hosts a Kick Out the Tories night with a stellar line up of agit-pop artists showcasing some of the best-ever protest songs guaranteed to rock home that message.

As is their wont, Thee Faction don’t simply take the stage but commandeer the venue with a bravado performance of belting, brassy, rock and blues laced with acerbic humour and socialist-dialectic lyrics.

Culled from their new album Reading Writing Revolution, opening number Know Your Enemy immediately has the crowd dancing and singing along. The sound’s built around a tight and fluid rhythm section, with Nylon’s excellent guitar work counterposed with horns and keyboard to superb effect.

Having honed their songwriting skills over the last two albums this 12-song set is packed with gems old and new, with an exuberant Con Dem Nation, a scathing Bastards, an emphatic Rent Strike and an anthemic Union Man standing out.

This is a band who believe passionately in the role of politics in music but who are clearly having fun.

No dour faces, they smile and engage with the audience both as entertainers and orators. It was a joy to hear everyone singing along with a chorus of “I’m loving Engels instead” on their their snappily titled Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

Grace Petrie is a diminutive giant. Though without her band Benefits Culture, she still has the audience totally in her spell from the off.

It’s not just that she writes so intelligently or sings with such passion, it’s her X-factor presence, her warmth and wit that seal the deal with the audience.

Opening with Tell Me a Story, you know she means it when she sings “flowing through our veins is love.” Emily Davidson Blues is introduced with a merciless skewering of Nick Clegg, Farewell to Welfare is a modern-day classic and They Shall Not Pass is a rousing exercise in audience participation at the finale.

It’s a confident and assured performance from an artist whose new album launch on June 6 could deliver the live gig of the year.

Chris TT and the Hoodrats round off the night with an intense set. TT is an intelligent songwriter but tonight his band’s wall of sound makes the lyrics — for the uninitiated — hardly decipherable. Fans are loving it, though, and you cannot help but be drawn into the music — like a dark pool it’s alluring yet mildly threatening.

Diverse talent and great performances with a powerful message made Kick Out the Tories a night to rememer. To paraphrase Thee Faction: “You’ve got the numbers, why don’t you use them?”

An encouragement, if ever there was one, to do the sums and vote intelligently on May 7.

• Thee Faction’s Reading Writing Revolution is available at £7 from theefaction.org

Review by Bob Oram