An Introduction

It seems these days that the massive majority of gigs i'm attending are reunions of some sort or another of bands from the nineties, so i thought i'd write about them.

A bit about my musical roots

I was fairly late to 'cool' music and spent the early part of my school years listing to the the same middle of the road crap as nearly everyone else. I'm not sure what happened really I had a decent musical upbringing, not from my parents but from friends etc, first record i bought was One Step Beyond by Madness, and we listened to them and Adam & The Ants growing up along with Sgt Peppers. Then i guess i concentrated on football for a few years and listened to some dodgy charty stuff for a few years.

Then I got very into Transvision Vamp.

Now i loved the Vamp, and they were key for me, they were in the NME so i bought it when they were in it. Then a girl I knew introduced me to The Darling Buds as she thought if i liked The Vamp i'd like them I'd heard of The Darling Buds via some kids folders/bags at school but never actually heard. I listened to that tape (Pop Said) a number of times and it dawned on me that there were probably loads of bands i'd love but had never listened to. This was 1988/9.

A couple of years listening to other similar bands and starting to read NME got me into The Primitives, Wonder Stuff, PWEI, Stone Roses and other early Madchester type stuff.

Uni years

I went to Teesside Poly (which became The University of Teesside while i was there which was nice), we had a really good student union which managed to book loads of decent bands before they broke so whilst there i saw many great gigs including...

Kingmaker
Primitives
Suede
Sultans of Ping (with Radiohead supporting!!!)
Family Cat


Plus a good few dancey acts as i didn't mind a bit of ravey stuff, Oceanic, Sunscreem, and Paul Oakenfold DJing.

Middlesbrough also played host to some bigger bands across the town so i'd go off and see them with my mate or we'd go on road trips to Leeds highlights included...

Manics
Radiohead (now headlining)
Oasis (supporting Whiteout who i loved)
PWEI
Compulsion
Kingmaker (again)
Jesus Jones
Senseless Things
Mega City Four

Reading Festival

At the end of our first year at uni a festival seemed the inevitable place to go that summer, we agreed Reading had our favourite looking line up, headliners, Wonder Stuff (who we loved but hadn't seen), Public Enemy and Nirvana (the biggest band in the world at that time). Anyway, much mud and beer later and we were in love, August Bank Holiday was a trip to Reading for the best part of the next ten years.

Britpop

I was now living in shared houses around East London/Essex post uni working as a graphic/web designer and spending all my spare cash on music and going to gigs. Friday night was a weekly trip to the Ilford Island for Supersonic, a massive indie/britpop night in walking distance of my house. Saturdays were spent spotting indie stars around Camden Market.
I saw just about every Britpop band out there in tiny dives around Camden and followed them all the way up to the mainstage at Reading. Great times.

Then music died a bit...

There was still good stuff out there, don't get me wrong but my faves split up/died and the bigger bands playing festivals were getting a bit repetitive (Foo Fighters etc, not bad bands but not ones I could identify with) and you had to delve deeper for the good stuff.
I got a bit bored with it all, stopped buying NME, XFM got a bit samey after Capital bought it, Lamacq and Whiley stopped doing The Evening Session and cool music was no longer on mainstream telly.

I moved back up north to have kids etc, then slowly after ten years or so some of my old faves got back together.