Stuart Macbeth revisits his youth in the company of the irrepressible Happy Mondays

  • Happy Mondays
  • O2 Academy Oxford
  • December 13 2013

The last time I saw Happy Mondays in concert, the Berlin Wall had just been knocked down. I spent two nights dancing like a monkey at the back of Wembley Arena — with Shaun Ryder and Co mere dots in the distance. Some 23 years later, I’m much closer up in a packed O2 Academy, battling my way through a middle-aged moshpit. Bez is first on stage, prowling about like a brilliant, demented witch doctor. “I thought he was dead!” quips the man to my left.

The Mondays are on tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their second LP Bummed — although I suspect this is really just an excuse to party. And Bez is far from dead — he’s phenomenal to watch, winning over the crowd with each shake of his maracas. I’m entranced.

The rest of the band arrive on stage, followed, eventually, by Shaun Ryder, who spends most of the night delivering classic one-liners. After making several mentions of the fact it’s 25 years since Bummed was released. he adds: “I’m surprised we made through the (expletive deleted) ‘80s, let alone the ‘90s!” No one bats an eyelid. I also cherish the moment he turned round to his brother Paul on bass with an “I don’t know what we’re doing… do you know what we’re doing, our kid?” The answer is probably not — but it doesn’t matter because between Shaun, Bez and female vocalist Rowetta it’s a brilliant circus of a performance.

The band are far better than I remember them being. Through the entire set there’s only one guitar solo. The rest of it is all action, set against Ryder’s mad, impeccable wordplay.

Highlights from Bummed include Country Song, the opener (“at some point in the late ‘80s we decided to cross country and western with Tupac”), Lazyitis, originally a duet with Scots country singer Karl Denver (“but he can’t join in — ‘cause he’s dead, haha!”) and Wrote for Luck which, we learn, made number 50 in the charts a quarter of a century ago.

There’s a sense of nostalgia about the Mondays’ performance but it’s a weird feeling — their music still seems new. It‘s lively, slightly threatening stuff, fronted by a couple of genuine legends. And the music world really does need people like Shaun Ryder to come and shake things up.

With Bummed out of the way the band come back for an encore of Hallelujah, Kinky Afro and Step On. Here the moshpit goes bananas — empty plastic pint glasses fly dangerously through the air from all directions. Over to my right I spy the usually sensible Dads’ Support Worker at our local children’s centre punching the air with his fist as he sings along to Kinky Afro’s “I only went with your mother ‘cause she’s dirty”. This alone would have made my night.

Terrific entertainment.

You can only hope they do it again for the Pills Thrills and Bellyaches in a couple of years’ time. Next time I’ll wear a crash helmet for the encore — if only to conceal my balding head.