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| Paul Weller, The Charlatans, Ian Brown, Echo and the Bunnyman, Noel Gallagher |
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| MEN Arena Manchester - 30th March 2007 |
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Manchester Versus Cancer 30/03/07
Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, Ian Brown, The Charlatans, Echo & the Bunnymen, Andy Rourke, Steve White, Mani, Barnard Butler, David McAlmont, The Electric Milk Band, Peter Hook, Denise Johnson.
This is the second Andy Rourke organised charity event to raise money for Christies Hospital and to celebrate the finest music from Manchester, the surrounding area and people who just like one of the worlds most influential musical cities. After the spectacular show last year, this years has a lot to live up to. The line up this year is mainly from the late 80’s early 90’s music scene with the likes of Noel Gallagher, Ian Brown, The Charlatans.
The show opens with an unsigned punky guitar band (Razor?) who had won a talent competition on local radio. They only played one song but carried it off with plenty of confidence, despite the size of the venue.
Next on where The Electric Milk Band who where the first one off collaboration of the night. They are Gaz Whelan (Happy Mondays), Johnny Evans (Buffalo 66) and Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs (Oasis) and play two or three songs which are ok but nothing special.
Bernard Butler, David McAlmont, Steve White, and Andy Rouke murder a couple of Smiths songs, right music wrong voice. David McAlmont may have been discovered by Morrissey many years ago but this was no way of repaying him. He may have a wide ranging voice but demonstrating this with Smiths songs does not work. When
Denise Johnson joined them on stage for ‘Yes’ he truly showed what he was capable of doing when the music is written for his voice.
The first real band of the night enter the stage in a cloud of dry ice which fails miserably to fill the caverness arena. Yes its big coats a big shades time, its Echo & the Bunnymen who do get a few boos from the Manc audience but start winning them over with their classic songs and even have then dancing and cheering at the end. Ok they are helped by Peter Hook joining them for the last song, which is dedicated to Tony Wilson (who is currently under going treatment at charities for cancer) and is the Joy Divisions/New Order classic Ceremony. For some (including me) this is the second time that they have seen McCulloch sing this song in Manchester as he sang it with New Order at the Tenth Summer of Punk Festival some 20 years previously.
The Charlatans are the first real big crowd pleaser and have the audience singing and dancing along. They are joined by Paul Weller and perform and excellent “Town Called Malice” which gets the last few stubborn members of the crowd going.
So when Ian Brown comes on the place is buzzing and ready for real Manc sing along. Which they get with a few classics from his solo work but instead of the Rose’s songs he is the first and only person to play new unheard material. The result is that the atmosphere starts dying and people notice just how band his voice is these days. I agree he never had the greatest voice but now it’s worse than a ex pub singer who’s battling throat cancer.
Luckily most of the crowd have come to see Noel Gallagher who manages to rescue the night with his acoustic set of Oasis songs. Unfortunately for us the night’s events have taken it out of our seven year old lad so we leave just as Paul Weller joins Noel on stage. I suppose we would have stage to the end if we had been big Oasis fans as it was spine tingling to see and hear the whole MEN sing along to each song, but we didn’t recognise many of the songs. This did mean we missed the big love in at the end when Ian Brown, Mani, Andy Rourke and Peter Hook come on stage and perfromed the Stone Roses classic 'I am the resurrection'.
It’s always heard to give a judgment on an event like this as you get so many unique collaborations and as it’s for charity it can’t be faulted. Having said that I don’t think it was as good as last years but I can put that down to a number of things
a) I am not a real Oasis or Charlatans fan, even though I have all their albums.
b) Ian Brown ruined the atmosphere with his new songs and bad voice
c) David McAlmont murdering The Smiths songs
d) Well missed the end.
It was a great night and we will go next year as you should, because you or someone you know may need the services of Christies one day, oh and Manchester does produce some great music.
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andy 30th March 2007 00:00:00 |
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