Some of the trippiest alt-rock of the 80s and 90s will be coming to London in December as the acid house haze of Happy Mondays descends from the their Salford routes for two gigs at the Roundhouse and a Bez fueled after party at the Lockside Lounge in Camden. Get ready to dance with maracas man and flip on your melons.
The gigs are set for Wednesday the 19th and Thursday the 20th December 2012 and both nights will be capped off with the afterglow of the Happy Mondays’ after show party. The shows kick off from 7-11pm and will set you back £32. Tickets for the after party are £9.50 in advance, but it’ll be a touch more on the door.
The Happy Mondays were a big part of the Manchester explosion of the late 80s with Factory Records coming into their ascendency on the back of their earlier success with Joy Division and New Order. With albums produced by both John Cale and Paul Oakenfold, they were always going to be on the edge of reality and their songs became the music of the 24 hour party people generation.
The full original line-up will feature in the December gigs, bringing Shaun Ryder, Paul Ryder, Mark Day and Paul Davis together for the first time in more than 9 years.
The best thing about the news of their December gigs is that it gives me a platform to share a wry anecdote about Bez and I in Amsterdam. On a work trip that featured Duvel to the brim and mash on the pretty beaches of the Hague, I needed to get a hair cut, but when it turned out the barbers shop on the east side of Amsterdam that I’d wandered into didn’t speak a word of English (I reckon he did and he was just laying it on) I was nearly snookered.
However, turning to the only magazine in the place I flicked through to find a picture of a guy with a fairly normal short back and sides. The only picture of a dude, it turned out, was one of Bez smiling happily as ever. Needless to say, I got a Bez chop. Well, I think you’ll all agree that it was a Happy Monday indeed. Ahar har.
Anyway, rubbish stories aside, the Happy Mondays gigs at the Roundhouse should be a lot of fun. To get tickets, visit Ticket Web.
