Sunday, March 17, 2013
Live Review: THE WEDDING PRESENT
Northcote Social Club,27/02/13
Unlike last night's sold
out sauna of a show, this, the second of two concerts Leeds' finest are
treating us to, has a loose, friendly and intimate feel from the moment the
band step on stage. Tonight sees them run through The Hit Parade, a compilation of their Guinness Book of World
Records-listed collection of singles (twelve charting singles in twelve
months). The nearly full room is populated mainly by men who bought The Hit Parade when its songs were still
A and B-sides, all of whom are in the throes of excited adoration from the
spectacular sour emphatic jangling of opener Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah.
David Gedge, the man who
essentially is The Wedding Present,
is as comfortable warmly chatting as he is dispatching acerbic barbs. He pulls
out the 'it’s so nice to be back, it seems like only yesterday' gag, which is
no less funny for being obvious. This sense of humour fuels Wedding Present
classics that get an airing tonight, like Everyone
Thinks He Looks Daft, Spider Man on
Hollywood and My Favourite Dress,
still doubling as an incendiary slice of futile malice despite now being
rendered despondently rather than with the vitriol that fuelled its 1987
release. A blistering, face-reddening take of Kennedy follows and the audience are borne along on his careering,
slashing chords and the tight deftness of his backing band. Guitarist Geoff
Maddock of Kiwi bands Bressa Creeting Cake and Goldenhorse is responsible for the
emphatic riffs and works fantastically with Gedge to recreate the harsh,
unaffected jangle that the Wedding Present made their own. After the fantastic Mystery Date, we’re lead via Come Play With Me and California – further exercises in pithy
economy – into The Hit Parade section of the show.
By now amp valves and vocal
cords are warmed up and the guitars' satisfying crunch and Gedge’s bolshy
utterances give the songs extra drive, and the set flows from high point to
high point, despite a frequent breaking of guitar strings. 'There’s a nostalgic
aspect to George Best. It clouds your
vision. These are better songs. It's better tonight,' Gedge says to affirming
cheers. The slippery melodies of Sticky
and heavy riffs of Love Slave ensue.
‘We don’t do encores. It’s nothing personal,’ Gedge tells us before issuing the
closing salvo of No Christmas and Deer in the Headlights with abandon;
every rhythmic, hunched nod from Gedge sending a shotglass worth of sweat
flying off to the floor.
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