If all there was to Chas and Dave was novelty songs about snooker and Spurs football club then they would have been consigned to the novelty pop bin of musical history years ago.
But instead of drifting into obscurity the Cockney pair, who play the Junction on Tuesday, have seen a renaissance in recent years, largely thanks to a new generation of young fans discovering their music.
The veteran duo say the reason for their recent injection of cool is simply that they know how to put on a good show. The first time the new generation of music fans came to know about the pair was when they were chosen by Pete Doherty to support The Libertines, and that led to their now infamous appearance at Glastonbury last year.
"We've done festivals before over the years and we've always gone down well," says Chas. "But what really surprised us was the amount of people who walked across the field to see us. When I got there about an hour before there were about seven or eight hundred people there and I thought, 'That's not a bad crowd'. Then backstage we started hearing them chanting 'Chas and Dave' like a football crowd and I thought, 'There's more than 700 people out there'.
"I think it was Coldplay on the main stage and the review in The Guardian the next day said one of our songs was better than their whole set."
Undoubtedly part of their enduring appeal is the fact that they can actually play their instruments. On his Radio 2 show recently, Dale Winton counted down the charts from 1961 and Chas was able to count three different records he'd played on as a 17-year-old session musician 45 years ago.
"If I look back on the people that influenced me, like Jerry Lee Lewis, he was up there playing the piano and he put on a performance," Chas tells scene. "There are lots of people nowadays that can't really sing or play and they rely on the studio to make them sound good but they don't last long. The reason we've lasted is because we can get up there and play.
"I think the younger generation of music fans now are the best ever, they really listen to you. I get cheers when I do a piano solo now, I never used to get that before."
But the thing that has always made Chas and Dave stand out from the crowd is their insistence on singing in their own native London accents.
"My ambition, before me and Dave even got together, was to write a song and sing it in my own accent, which is Cockney, and for it to be taken seriously.
"I had never known that to happen before and Ain't No Pleasing Youdid that when it got to number two in the charts.
"I think wherever you're from you should sing in your own accent and not put on something else, like an American accent. We have been misunderstood over the years, sometimes people think it's all about us thinking that London is the greatest place in the world but it's not.
"One of my favourite modern bands is the Arctic Monkeys, they sound great and they sing in their own northern accents.
"I was born in London and I love where I was born but all I ever wanted to do was make music."
Supporting Chas and Dave are a local band, The Shivers, who cite the duo as an important influence on their music.
The band are currently putting the finishing touches to their new album It Ain't Easy Being in The Shivers which is set to cement their place as the biggest crowd-pullers on the Cambridge music scene.
Chas and Dave and The Shivers play The Junction on Tuesday. Tickets are £12-£13.
To book, call (01223) 511511.
Source: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk
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