The Wedding Present + The Nightingales + Taffy @ The Slade Rooms Wolverhampton 22nd October 2013
The delights of Wolverhampton on a match night. As I was pushing my way to the Slade Rooms through a tide of Old Gold shirts I got to thinking about past glories and fan loyalty. I knew before I got to the venue that many in the crowd would be like a lot of those Wolves fans, and indeed like me, — loyal, in it for the long term, and yet wondering where all the time has gone.
At least bands can replay their past glories and the flood of album tours has given the fans the opportunity to wallow in nostalgia and in the retrospective world of The Wedding Present we have reached 1992.
The Hit Parade was an important time in the life of a long-term Weddoes fan, what with all those monthly early morning visits to Spinadisc or Rockaboom or Rough Trade, and trying to guess which out of the latest live offerings would end up being the next of the twelve singles that made up what remains a record-breaking feat to this day.
The makeup of the current audience for Mr Gedge and his chums can be as changeable as the band members themselves. People come and people go but then they come back again but the core remains the same. I’m not convinced that The Hit Parade represents as much of a draw as other potential nostalgia trips like the George Best or Bizarro tours and a lot of fans take it for granted . So to set the record straight let’s nail that landmark for the uninitiated.
In the calendar year 1992 The Wedding Present released twelve 7″ singles; one each month. Each single had a limited pressing of 10,000 copies and each release reached the Top 30 in the U.K. singles chart, a feat only equalled by Elvis Presley.
Not bad eh? The more publicity hungry would have hacked that factoid to death in a maelstrom of PR, but in the typically understated world of David Gedge it’s just one more line in the Weddoes story; one more piece of folklore.
They may represent novelty value to some but amongst those twelve tunes are some of the best the the band have produced. Many of them have been familiar staples of live sets over the years yet we still had the bizarre spectacle of a woman loudly berating the band from the barrier for playing unfamiliar songs. She even went as far as to bellow that they ought to be playing Bizarro all the way through showing that she was caught in her own peculiar time warp. She was either three years late, the band having toured that album previously, or time had stopped dead for her in 1989. It just shows that for some nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, as some bloke once said.
Tokyo based four-piece Taffy open their own window on the early 1990s. Obviously obsessed with British pop of that era they have sound that owes a lot to Echobelly, Lush or Elastica whilst containing that other-worldy ingredient that must come from viewing a cultural trend from the outside.
In Kensuke Kasuya they have the smiliest drummer on the planet, and bass player Koichin has the best cheek bones since Dennis Dunaway. Their cover of Boys Don’t Cry is a bit idiosyncratic and tonight it was even more so as the sound quality was not the best and I’m sure people only recognised it half way through.
Idiosyncratic and Robert Lloyd go hand in hand. The Nightingales front man can make disinterest seem threatening and the “undertakers on a night out” look only adds to the awkwardness. They always play their sets as if they are one long song and if you don’t like the tunes it can be a bit of a trial, but they don’t care. The whole thing is a feat of memory for the band and fitness for drummer Fliss Kitson who was a whirlwind of arms and legs throughout. I’ve always liked them but only in small doses. As a mate once said they are a bit like Cud, but without the dancing or the laughter.
The Wedding Present played a set that got a response that is typical in terms of any Weddoes crowd reaction to be found outside of Leeds, London or Manchester these days. There was a lot of standing around and singing along, a bit of dancing and then at a point the whole place just kicked off. There is no rhyme or reason for this that I can fathom although maybe age brings an increase in self consciousness as well as decrepitude.
Charlie Layton’s set list is certainly designed to build up to the climax of My Favourite Dress and/Pleasant Valley Sunday but tonight the opening Interstate 5 and a couple of newer songs failed to get the pulses racing. Even Brassneck and Niagara proved a bit low-key. The band were on top form but the crowd less so.
Highlights for me were Three, Flying Saucer and Come Play With Me and I am gradually warming to No Christmas, a song that I could take or leave before now and one that had not been played live before The Hit Parade performances this year.
In the end everyone was happy. Inside the place was jumping at last and outside Wolves had won 2-0.
I wonder what the Watusi tour will feel like?
Photographs – Stephanie Colledge
Words -Ian Gelling