Anyone who is a fan of Brit-rock legends The Wildhearts will know that during the band’s prime in the mid-nineties, they constantly seemed on the verge of splitting up.
They generated as much coverage for their volatile relationship with their record company, the press and even each other as they did for their frequently brilliant music.
Who would have foreseen them then, playing packed shows at venues like Manchester Academy more than 20 years on from debut album Earth vs The Wildhearts?
Perhaps more people than you would think despite those chaotic and often drug fuelled days.
The Wildhearts may never have reached the size of 90’s contemporaries such as Oasis, but they’ve always had a loyal, intensely devoted fanbase.
Or as frontman Ginger once put it, ‘always been a massive band in people’s hearts’.
In fact, it may not be inaccurate to say that their fans are the reason why they haven’t split up – well, not for too long anyway.
This tour comes on the back of a successful ‘Earth Vs…’ 20th anniversary tour, but reports from earlier gigs in Wolverhampton and Bristol had been mixed.
There had been reports of sound problems which hampered the start of this year’s UK trek.
But no such issues are in evidence when the band take to the stage and strike up early favourite Nothing Ever Changes But the Shoes.
They may be rock veterans these days but, like Therapy?, The Wildhearts are still able to deliver their earlier material with as much conviction as ever.
There is a look of glee on Ginger’s face as he delivers the line ‘I wanna be there when you say you’re wrong/ I wanna be there when you crawl/ I would piss on your opinions’.
The set is frontloaded with hits; Nita Nitro is the only non-single from an opening salvo that includes TV Tan and Caffeine Bomb.
“Thank you Manchester, it’s nice to get a positive audience reaction…it’s been a while”, laughs Ginger – a knowing reference to the two preceding gigs.
He’s definitely mellowed out over the last few years, but Ginger can still be hilariously truculent.
He introduces Someone That Won’t Let Me Go with an amusing mini-rant.
“This next song is off an album called The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed,” he tells the crowd.
“Some people didn’t like that album because it had too many quality tunes on it. Thankfully, they’ve all fucked off and you’re here.”
They round off the main set with perhaps their best known song, I Wanna Go Where the People Go.
The track that could have made them huge, were it not for some disastrous decisions and disastrous drug-intake scuppering them at the time.
They return with Pogues-y sing-a-long Geordie in Wonderland before getting stuck into some less frequently played material.
The likes of Chutzpah!, The Jackson Whites, Tim Smith and – best of all – the mangled punk-metal of Junkenstein all get an airing.
Bored of some of the older songs, Ginger politely asks if ‘it’s okay if we play some stuff we like.
“It’s important for a band that have been going as long as we have,” he says.
It seems he underestimates the esteem his fans have for some of their more recent material, as it’s all well received, with pogo-ing and moshing aplenty.
American bassist Scott Sorry, who’s returned to The Wildhearts fold for this tour, took up lead vocals for The Only One.
He dedicates it to his wife, watching from the wings on her first ever visit to the UK.
Earlier he’d jumped into the audience for a spot of crowd-surfing after a very warm welcome back from the fans.
Guitarist CJ also takes the mic for a cover of Helmet’s Unsung before handing over to Ginger for You Took the Sunshine from New York.
Everyone’s favourite B-side-shoulda-been-an-A-side 29 X the Pain finishes the night on a high.
As a smile spreads over Ginger’s face he delivers the line ‘I cannot get down/when I got all my friends around…
They never became as big as they deserved to be, but tonight – to paraphrase one of their songs – Manchester raised its glass to the Wildhearts’ underworld.
Image courtesy of WetWebWork, via Flickr, with thanks
