The Wedding Present

I saw The Wedding Present play at The Hippo in Plymouth on June 20th and thought they were brilliant. When I was a student in Coventry they were spoken of frequently but, as far as I can tell, I never heard any of their songs. Friends of mine knew about them but never imparted their knowledge to me.

So when some of my mates mentioned they were going to see them in Plymouth I quickly checked them out on the internet. Hearing them for the first time, they sounded like a cross between The Smiths and Joy Division.

I also discovered that they'd had 18 Top Forty singles in the UK without hardly anyone noticing.

There was quite a gang of us at The Hippo in the end. Unlike when I was a student, word had spread in an understated kind of way. Those who knew of The Wedding Present playing that night had perhaps mentioned it to only a few of us and, when they had, they'd typically omitted to say that they were going along. Only The Usual Suspects (Garry and Rich) had been sufficiently effusive about this underground band to announce their intentions and Gary'd never heard them before.

For Rich in particular, that night was a big re-union. He'd seen The Wedding Present many times before and had obviously gone to their gigs with half the population of Plymouth because they all recognised him. Even Gary and I, who are not natives of Plymouth, saw a few familiar faces.

The Wedding Present are great live and Gedge has an impressive collection of guitars. He even had a guitar monitor who handed out a fresh one from the racks at the back of the stage. I can't be sure but I don't think he played any more than twice and most only once.

Afterwards, Gedge and Terry de Castro, the bass player (whose knees we'd been admiring all night) were by the merchandise stand. I like this kind of approachability. Many bands could learn from this.

I was sufficiently impressed to download an MP3 album off Amazon when I got home that very night. It's been a long time since I've seen a band without knowing their songs beforehand. I reckon I should do this more often but I feel it's unlikely I'll be so pleasantly surprised as I was by The Wedding Present.

I just don't understand why their followers are so reticent. So, to buck that trend, here's a link to the
The Wedding Present Scopitone site.