The Mathew Street Festival

An all too rare trip into Liverpool city centre these days for me. I have not worked in the city centre for over three years now. Apart from the odd gig or pint,I never make it back into Liverpool as much as I would like. The excuse this weekend was for the annual August Bank Holiday Mathew Street Festival at the Pier Head.

I hadn’t attended the festival in a number of years with it having previously been a staple of the Clark calendar. It has certainly evolved into something more akin to a proper festival these days – instead of the usual cornucopia of Beatles cover-bands.

Don’t get me wrong I love the Beatles, but usually after a weekend in Mathew Street. I normally go into Beatles cold turkey in September - as I’m usually Beatled-out.

It was good to see the weather didn’t spoil the proceedings either - it was a glorious day to be on the waterfront.

What was also great was the fact that walking from Lime Street station to the venue, the amount of different foreign accents that I heard. It’s great that Liverpool can attract these visitors and augers well for the 2008 City of Culture celebrations. It made me proud to be a Scouser, albeit one exiled in St Helens. There were hardly any of the usual knobheads out in force that usually mar any occasion in Liverpool…which was a bonus.

I was primarily there to see The Wonder Stuff who were on top form as they usually are these days. The band weren't helped though by the sound which was a little muddy from my point mid-way back - the mix was a little too much lead guitar and the drums - with not much of anything else.

The set was the tried and trusted festival set and the hit Size of a Cow made it back into the set after a long absence. Size of a Cow is something of a millstone being as it is the bands biggest hit (Dizzy apart), the problem is that it’s not a true representation of the bands other material.

Front man Miles Hunt was strangely subdued today - hardly any between song banter, which is normally a feature of the proceedings - this may have been something to do with the previous night's excesses at a gig in Cumbria and the un-rock n roll Sunday afternoon start.

There performance may have even convinced a mate - a nonbeliever of The Wonder Stuff's talent that they are in fact pretty good. Though at some considerable cost to me - I'll have to stand through a James Morrison gig in the near future!!!

The other bands I managed to see included The Lightening Seeds and Shack, both local favourites. I had seen The Lightening Seeds the other week in Blackburn at another festival – but I wasn’t too impressed that day. I have to say they were much better here today and they played all the usual songs that you would come to expect and saved the obvious Three Lions to last. Ian Broudie even updated the lyrics to 40 years of hurt.

The last band I saw was Shack. They are a band that I love and I have most of their stuff that they have released down the years. I have even seen them live a few times too and they have usually been on the money.

They were a shambles today - they even had to be warned about the in between song profanities that didn’t go down too well with the family crowd. As beautiful and poetic as they are on record, they were the polar opposite today.


I slopped off before the end of the set to soak up some of the atmosphere amongst the tourist and locals alike in Mathew Street. It was good to be back at the Mathew Street festival and here’s to next year and my return to being a festival regular.