Happy Mondays dwell in the Eternal Eighties with a wonderful revue featuring classic album Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches.
They formed in 1980 in Salford, putting them at the centre of gravity of the great and influential Manchester music scene. They have been expanding and contracting over the last 43 years. This is their fifth reformation. In art and music, energy and mass also remain equivalent.
From the start there were the brothers, Shaun Ryder voice and Paul Ryder bass. Paul died last year at a relatively young 58 years old. There is a replacement bass player on stage tonight.
Gary Whelan drums and Mark Day guitars were also foundation members. Following on are Mark Bez Berry dancing and maracas’, Rowetta Idah voice, and Dan Broad keyboard and samples.
It is Rowetta who fronts up first as the instrumentalists gather in the dark. Dressed in multi-coloured bohemian threads, she is the most visually stunning on stage.
Nice, gritty Soul as she welcomes the packed full house with dance wit’ cha one time.
They kick into Kinky Afro and Shaun Ryder makes his entrance. Dressed in black and he resembles a slightly rotund Mike Myers playing Doctor Evil. The tenor voice has become gravelly. The delivery is an incantatory declamatory chant. Beat poet singing and kin to Mark E. Smith more than John Cooper Clarke.
It is hard to make out what he’s saying in his between-song banter with his broad accent and volume distortion. He’s having fun and his energy level doesn’t wane over the course of the set.
A top song to begin, and then you hear the familiar yippy yippy yah yah refrain. Cribbed from Labelle’s Lady Marmalade.
The Mondays’ music is complex in that it stitches in a lot of elements. On God’s Cop the groove is dominant, and the impression is of English Funk. They could be the Manchester version of Little Feat.
Donovan and there is tasty wah-wah guitar. Music of sunshine and the extension of the vamp replacing tension and release. The lyrics are scathing and cutting.
Rowetta kicks off Loose Fit with a Northern Soul vocal. The bass gets a shout-out as he starts with a heavy bottom, then guitar riffs take it over. Has some of the ambience of I Spy (For the FBI).
This band locks in immediately with each song and are as tight as the JBs behind the past Godfather of Soul.
Bez does his bit out front with the maraccas and his dance. He smiles a lot and there is a definite synergy between him and Ryder. He serves the purpose in a similar fashion to Gerard Malanga dancing with whips for the Velvet Underground. There is also a physical resemblance to Jason Williamson of the Sleaford Mods.
Tart Tart is the oldest song they do, off debut album Squirrel and G-Man Twenty-Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out).
Rave On, from Hallelujah, has some of the dance beat of the Bee Gees’ Jive Talkin’. It borrows the opening lines of Buddy Holly’s Rave On. Rowetta adds a militant Soul voice.
She portrays sex and black Gospel on Bob’s Yer Uncle and gets to channel some Patti Labelle again.
Hallelujah is an unusual song, with the drone riff from Tubular Bells adding a particular spice.
24 Hour Party People leads with a fast bass riff and a wash of synth tones. An atonal quality implying sunshine and drugs.
Step On is simply a great groove and has the familiar twistin’ my melon phrase. There is some tasty guitar string-bending reminiscent of Ernie Isley. Ryder ad-libs some John Lennon in there, the song about the juju eyeballs. Not too loud in case Morris Levy might hear.
Silk Cut
Silk Cut are a brand-new band from Auckland, having formed at the start of the lockdown in 2020. I take it that they have been playing in other projects over the years.
Andrew Thorne on guitar is the principal songwriter. Aiden Phillips on bass. I am reasonably certain the others are Justin McLean guitar and Jayden Lee drums.
Their sound is immersed in the guitar bands of the late Sixties and Seventies, which makes for familiar and satisfying listening. Built around a twin guitar attack.
Manta Ray starts with chiming guitars and extends out with some Crazy Horse heaviness, specifically the Seventies albums behind Neil Young.
Most of their set follows this course. A Very Special Life mixes in some Power Pop.
The Transfer stands out with the drummer leading from the front. Sensed some of the atmospherics of the Psychedelic Furs.
A disciplined and tight band while stretching out. They should gain a following.
Happy Mondays finish in style with Wrote for Luck, from the Bummer album. The guitar comes on initially like the Theme from Shaft. Metronomic drones and it’s mutant Surf music with a poison edge in the lyrics.
The dance grooves make it wonderful. Gitcha Gitcha Ya-Ya’s Out.
Rev Orange Peel
Photography by Chris Zwaagdyk
Happy Mondays
Silk Cut