The Wonder Stuff - Arts in the Park 2006: Witton Country Park, Blackburn

Set List: On the Ropes, Here Comes Everyone, Caught in my Shadow, Golden Green, Its Yer Money, Blah Di Blah, Comic Tragedy, A Wish Away, Mission Drive, Circle Square, The Sun Goes Down on Manor Road, Don’t let me Down, Unbearable, Ten trenches Deep.

Second on the bill at Blackburn Council’s annual festival, amongst such luminaries as Dario G, Liz Mclarlnon and headliners The Lightening Seeds, The Wonder Stuff could have been forgiven for taking it easy and going through the motions.

The smattering of Stuffies amongst the crowd they need not have worried as they were on stomping form - though they may not have made it on stage if the previous act Mike Sanchez had is own way. He reluctantly left the stage after non-so subtle hints from the event organisers. Thankfully he took the hint - there’s only so much fucking boogie-woogie you can take.

The Wonder Stuff’s set drew upon the bands tried and tested crowd favourites and sounded as good as ever. It was also good to see a fiddle player back in band; this meant that Golden Green and the closer Ten Trenches are back in the set. Erica Nockalls is a distinctive and talented addition to the band and is encouraging as the bands full repertoire can be explored again.

They even threw in a couple of songs from the new album Blah Di Blah and the ode to many a drunken night between Miles and bassist Mark McCarthy, The Sun Goes Down on Manor Road. Miles promptly reminded all and sundry, that the band had been busy releasing a couple albums of late.

Front man Miles Hunt, soon to celebrate his fortieth birthday, was in fine form and being the old showman that he is dedicated one of the songs to an infant in the audience on the shoulders of his father.

The final three of Don’t let me Down, Unbearable and Ten trenches Deep had my less sprightly self harking back to my younger days of the Indie discos.

They certainly stole the show with their performance, the headliners who followed only had the one song that the tattooed numb-nuts in the crowd wanted to hear, but the Lightening Seeds had long bored the arse of me before I could witness the spectacle of Three Lions and a couple of hundred Texans.

We might have had a few more tunes, if the previous act had not overrun. But The Wonder Stuff’s performance was more than satisfactory and wanting anything else would have been greedy. Here’s to seeing them next at the Mathew Street Festival.

The Wonder Stuff

Liverpool Academy 2, Wednesday 6th October 2004

The Wonderstuff ride again the staple of that indie disco are back as a full-time touring outfit with an album to promote, the bristling ‘Escape from Rubbish Island’.

Shorn of drummer Martin Gilks and Martin ‘Fiddly’ Bell the band are now down to two of the original line up - main-man and mouthpiece Mile Hunt and guitarist Malcolm Treece. They are augmented by Miles’ compadre in the Miles Hunt Club drummer Andreas Karu and bassist Mark McCarthy, whom Miles has described as the first serious contender for the sadly late and lamented Bass-thing’s role.

No keyboards or fiddle player for this tour, so that meant a return to the tunes of the ‘Eight Legged Groove Machine’ and ‘Hup’ era.

The hardcore of fans who came out for this trip on a cold October Wednesday were probably not too fussed at the omissions of songs such as ‘Dizzy’ and ‘Size of Cow’ these were the hardcore, the fans were rewarded to a smattering of rarely heard classics and forgotten b-sides to warm the souls on this autumn evening.

Miles’ was his usual crowd baiting best and any rumours of his mellowing were dispelled with a couple of diatribes at the current state of popular music…bands such as Coldplay were in Miles’ line of vision.

The new material complimented the older ‘Hup’ era material with tunes such as ‘Don’t Let Me Down, Gently’ sung with as much gusto by the thirty-something audience as it was by the band themselves. It is fair to say the crowd were suitably rewarded with a set of sing-along classics that harked back to days when the hair was longer and the t-shirts were a little less figure hugging.

The NME may not want to know these days but as long as they are producing tunes such as ‘Bile Chant’ and the audience are coming to the gigs. The Wonderstuff will be a welcome addition to a bill near you.