EXCLUSIVE: Happy Mondays stepping it up

United Kingdom | by Ross Purdie | 19 August 2004

VF pops along to the Happy Mondays' rehearsals as they prepare for Sunday's Get Loaded In The Park reunion gig. If you're going, be very excited - and that's Bobby Gillespie's verdict, not just ours!

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Having taken a treacherous ride in the back of a transit van, we now find ourselves in a stuffy recording studio just off the Caledonian Road. The Darkness are recording upstairs and Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie has just skipped through the studio door, taking a break from an afternoon of sound testing his new material to witness the Happy Mondays reviving their original melon-twisting baggy madness for one more show ... for now anyway.

For Shaun Ryder, Gaz Whelan, Bez, and the half a dozen or so new musicians thrown into the Mondays' unique cabaret fray, life beyond Sunday's headline show for the first ever Easyjet Get Loaded In The Park festival, on London's Clapham Common, has been put to one side.

Everyone is aware of the thousands of scrutinous eyes that will inevitably descend upon them, tabloid journalists circling like vultures desperate for them to fail, others expecting a half-arsed performance motivated solely by the cheque at the end of the performance. After all, their last reunion in 2000 was marred with messy performances, stage storm-offs, and Shaun's admission that it was all about the cash.

But standing, listening here today, all the nostalgia cliques congeal into a big euphoric lump in the throat - shivers down the spine, dewy-eyed electric surprise, unrelenting smiles breaking out from a place previously locked away in some sweaty 90s club.

This is only the reinvigorated Mondays' second day of full rehearsals and if today is anything to go by, Sunday is going to be truly special. An epic, moody intro lights a teasing torch towards the hippy throws of 'Kinky Afro', the baggy 'Loose Fit' bounds about boosted by new beats and bleeps, and 'Step On', well you can just wait for that one - words don't do justice. Black Grape fans are in for a bit of a treat too and rumour is that a surprise special guest will be joining the band for very well known cover.

But don't just take all this from us. A mop-nodding Bobby Gillespie enthuses: "It's just sounding amazing, isn't it? Sean Paul Ryder is a true poet, man. I'm not at all surprised by how good it sounds - all their stuff's great. It's proper. I wish I could go on Sunday but we're playing V. But it's great to be in the same studio so we can pop in and check it out."