Happy Monday, O2 Academy Birmingham
- Jude Onions
- Apr 5, 2024
- 3 min read
The 90s smashed their way back into Birmingham on Saturday night when the Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets and Stereo MCs headed to the O2 Academy on the latest leg of the Happy Mondays ‘Been there done that’ tour.
The crowd flocked into the Academy wearing their finest 90s fashion, with plenty of Adidas tops and trainers, bucket hats and baggy trousers on show. As we waited and the beer flowed, the 90s hits rang around the room with lots of singing in unison to the classic hits.
First to the stage was Stereo MCs, smashing out hits like ‘Connected, ‘Deep Down & Dirty’ and of course ‘Step it up’. The vintage hip hop and rave beats soon had the whole room jumping with hands in the air and at this point I knew that this was definitely going to be a sweaty night!
Next up on the stage was 90s indie legends Inspiral Carpets, who were part of that seminal Madchester movement. With the indie guitars and funky organ sounds, you could close your eyes and suddenly be transported back 30 years (I can’t believe it’s been that long).. With songs like ‘This is how it works’ and ‘Dragging me down’, you could tell that the band had not lost the passion for being on stage. When ‘Saturn 5’ started the crowd roared into excitement I’m sure every single person in the room was singing every single word back to the band. Their set was too quick and I could have listened to them all night but as soon as they had left the stage we knew that more funky sounds were heading our way.
Once the stage crew had set everything up and as the lights dimmed, you could feel the electricity in the room build and then suddenly explode as Rowetta and the band walked onto stage and started off the intro to ‘Kinky Afro’. We could hear Shaun Ryders voice in the background and I wasn’t sure if this was recorded or not until Shaun and Bez bounded onto stage. Shaun stood in the centre of the stage for most of the set with a bottle of water in hand, a stark contrast to Bez who with his trademark maracas in hand didn’t stand still for one second. Throwing shapes and body grooves from one side of the stage to the other.
With the backdrop of the Happy Mondays famous stylised logo at the back of the stage the band belted hit after hit like ‘Loose Fit’ and ‘Rave On’. Ok Shauns voice is a little tired now days but it still had that recognisable Manchester swagger. Signing the night of with massive hits ’24 Hour Party People’ and ‘Step On’, we hoped that as the band left the stage that they would soon be back. And of course to wild roars they returned to finish the night with one more song ‘Wrote for luck’.
As the crowd filled out, we knew that the 90s had returned to Birmingham for maybe just one more night of funky, floor filled happiness and it wasn’t even a Monday.
You can view more photos on our Flickr account here
Stereo MCs
Inspiral Carpets
Happy Mondays
Review & photos by Matt
* All reviews are the individual writers thoughts and are not necessarily those of Dropped Halo Media.
댓글