Excitations, London Style

It's a proper London premiere. A red carpet in Leicester Square, illuminated by lights and surrounded by TV cameras, snappers and celebrity hunters. No spare seats in the Odeon tonight, but many familiar faces, like Bobby Gillespie and the Scream Team, Jonny Quinn out of Snow Patrol, Undertone Damian O' Neill, Greg Cowan from The Outcasts, a couple of My Bloody Valentine survivors, a Rudi drummer, an Idiot and a score of reconstituted Belfast punks. London, it's your time to get acquainted with Good Vibrations, the movie.

Richard Dormer and Adrian Dunbar are on the carpet, taking their dues for some quality acting. Likewise with Jodie Whittaker. But hey, there's Terri Hooley himself, striding though the rain, benign with this bonus act in his life and a film that remembers his service to Alternative Ulster. Some of the English media are concerned that the script has been harsh on him, but we know that he's even less cute in real life.

This is apparent when Terri takes to the stage at the start of the screening, accompanied by directors Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D'sa, by writer Glenn Patterson, instigator David Holmes plus producers, actors and all. A few quotes are permitted, but it's Hooley who hogs the microphone, causes a bit of consternation with the London Film Festival guy and says a welcome to Sheila, wife of John Peel and her family. And when they finally get him into his seat and the film starts to roll, it's Terri who commences to heckle his own narrative.

It's a joy to see the film here, in a city that cold-shouldered Terri in 1978 when he carried a bag full of 'Teenage Kicks' pressings around a specious music industry. This evening, the city appreciates the rock and roll mission that the guy endured. The audience laughs in the right places, it gets the sudden horror and the creeping pathos. That said, they've been getting Good Vibrations in South Korea and Galway, in Belfast and Brittany. London is on the list, then.

The celebrations roll up to the St Moritz Club on Wardour Street, a place I last visited in 1991 with the Manic Street Preachers. I don't believe they've had the decorators in since. That's no great bother to Iain McCready and Noel Watson and to the many active members of the diaspora. The mood will not be diminished and some folks won't be going to bed for a while. There's still a core of them at Seven Dials, near Covent Garden as the sun rises and the tradesmen start their working day. Moderation is optional when you've gone though an experience like this. Easily one of the best, you've ever had.