Reviews

Inspiral Carpets (pic: Ian Tilton)

The Carpets were welcomed to the stage by a harmonious ripple of mooing and backed by pictures of their trademark whirly-eyed cows, and the almost military drum and organ intro to ‘Dragging Me Down’ opened the floodgates for a plethora of indie classics that have seen the Inspirals placed firmly in the Madchester hall of fame.

Constant reminders of how "it was good to be back" and how great Manchester is, went down well with the crowd, the majority of which were fondly reminiscing about the good old days, with conversation topics ranging from seeing them at GMEX first time round to how ‘Find Out Why’ doubling as the theme tune to the 90's kids show, The 8.15 From Manchester.

‘Saturn 5’, ‘She Comes In The Fall’, ‘Joe’ and the timeless anthem ‘This Is How It Feels’ were met by a rapturous response. Eyes closed, hands in the air, this was one happy bunch of punters, especially when a huge picture of Clint Boon - complete with the infamous bowl haircut - alongside their former roadie, a certain Mr Noel Gallagher, sporting an equally ridiculous barnet, caused a ripple of laughter to waft through the venue.

It wasn’t all fun and frolics though, thanks to a sobering and touching moment as the crowd simmered down when a huge picture of Tony Wilson accompanied with the opening organ groans of ‘Sackville’. The band reminded us how without Mr Wilson giving them a slot on his TV show, The Other Side Of Midnight, they wouldn't have the breaks they needed to be with us tonight.

So with Tony peering over his spec's - almost as if he was keeping a watchful eye over proceedings - the Inspirals faithful made their way off into the night, many of them taking up Tom’s earlier request to "get yourselves down to the aftershow" and partying into the early hours, before packing up their ‘Cool As ****’ t-shirts back into storage, until the next time.