I’m counting my blessings
Oct 4 2007 by Matthew Mckenzie, The Journal
Happy Mondays at Newcastle Carling Academy
JUST last week I watched Ian Brown in this cavernous former bingo hall and he took me out of here and back in time to the scorched grass in a park of my childhood.
It was 1989, my generation’s own summer of love, and I had my ludicrously low-fi tape recorder playing I Am The Resurrection as the sun beat down and the North-West seemed like the centre of the Earth.
This week, another group who led the so-called baggy revolution are here to immerse us in nostalgia.
The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses were the Mancunian bands who changed modern music, welding dance beats to guitars and introducing us snobbish rock fans to the notion of a groove.
They also took a lot of drugs, not that there was anything revolutionary in that. Mr Shaun Ryder is back and cleaned up these days and, to be fair to him, tonight is more than just a lucrative amble down memory lane.
Indeed, they never really went away, morphing into Black Grape – producing a couple of compellingly brilliant albums – and then back again.
And so to the shrill sound of sirens, Ryder strolls on in trilby and shades and doesn’t move much from the centre of the stage for the rest of the night. Bez does quite the opposite.
A hysterical Kinky Afro kicked things off, followed by a liberal smattering of new songs, a comic and cool Loose Fit and a surprise rendition of Reverend Black Grape that reminds me of the euphoria this song induced on release.
And then comes Hallelujah, whereupon Shaun William Ryder refers to himself by his full name in glorious self validation.
I won’t bore you with religious puns as I suddenly realise that two of my favourite songs are called Hallelujah, but this hunking slab of music couldn’t be more different from the delicate beauty of Leonard Cohen’s namesake number. Thank heavens there’s room in this world for both. And while most things are open to interpretation, Step On is incontrovertibly not: it was massive and magnificent, an utter celebration, and as thrilling a concert going moment as I’ve seen all year.
They even popped out a jolly 24 Hour Party People for good measure at the end.
Somebody once said Shaun Ryder was a street poet – maybe, maybe not. He is definitely an extremely good pop star.
