I shouldn’t confess to this, but I will. Because I love you. All of you. Even of those of you I don’t. Because you deserve to know this.

I’d decided to lambast this lot. For reforming and becoming a slow, cold cabaret act. For endlessly playing the same twenty or so songs and coming out to play one-off gigs whenever there’s a gas bill that needs paying. At least they’ve got some of the original members, AND sound fantastic, AND are doing it because they want to. Not to pay off a huge tax bill, or a drug habit, or because their dayjob had made them redundant.

It’s like going to see the best tribute band there is : nobody could sound more like The Wonder Stuff than The Wonder Stuff themselves.

So, stuff all that cynical bullshit. Because it’s not about chart positions or industry bullshit. It’s not about the fact that they haven’t written a song in a decade (though they bloody well should have). The Wonder Stuff play gigs because they want to, when they want to, and for one reason only : the music.

It’s just about a bunch of mates getting up on a stage and playing some great songs, most of which they wrote years ago. For love. For the music’s sake. Not for getting their dicks sucked, not for fame, but for the sheer joy of making a damn great big racket. And what a racket. Great songs are timeless.

And despite the fact that this lot are, and will always be, terminally uncool by virtue of the fact that they don’t come from America and they sold more than 150 records, these songs are brilliant. Snapshots from a bygone age, but the majority of them still hold true today. And George Bush still wants to bomb Brown People. Some things never change.

They still play like hyperactive teenagers. They still sound like the same petulant, lovable brats they always did. They’re still just a blur of hair, noise, and wit. And they still play songs like “Unbearable”, which is as good as ANYTHING on the first Ramones album or Motorhead’s “No Remorse”. Songs that still make grown men jump up and down, and shout and scream like teenagers on their first pint. I haven’t been this happy since the end of World War 2.

They were great then. They’re great now. They’re still uncool. They’re still never going to crack America. The only thing that has changed is I ache more now than I used to. There’s a ringing in my ears and I can’t move my neck. Must have been a good night though.

Fuck it. The press don’t like ‘em. But I do. I had a great time. And isn’t that what music is all about?

CANT SHAPE UP, A WISH AWAY, RUBY HORSE, ON THE ROPES / WHITE MAN IN HAMMERSMITH PALAIS , HERE COMES EVERYONE, THE SIZE OF A COW, DONATION, SLEEP ALONE, CIRCLESQUARE, GOLDEN GREEN,A GREAT DRINKER,CARTOON BOYFRIEND, UNBEARABLE, GIVE GIVE GIVE, TEN TRENCHES DEEP
Encore:-MISSION DRIVE, PIECE OF SKY, SONG WITHOUT AN END, IT'S YER MONEY, POISON, GOODNIGHT THOUGH.

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