Rest Easy Cummins

So I have a new phone. This is a good thing because this one actually works and isn't several years out of technological date. Still, it's also cause for sadness because I'd become rather attached to the antiquated brick and it's slightly useless ways.

A case in point is the camera. Weighing in at a hefty 2.0 megapixels and with a shutter button that had to be pressed so hard that any picture not taken in bright sunshine adopted a distinctive blur you'd think I wouldn't ever have bothered using it. Yet many was the time I found myself caught up in post-sunset events thinking 'I must capture this moment forever. Unleash the trusty box brownie phone and let us make photographic magic.'

By way of a tribute to my ex-phone I'll like to share some of our finest concert moments together. Over the next few days I intend to blow your mind with scenes that will actually make you feel you are there - providing by there you mean in the very back row of a 100,000-seater stadium and high on ketamine. I'd like to dedicate this exhibition to the great Kevin Cummins, former NME photographic stalwart and whose works adorned my teenage bedroom walls (and beyond). Kevin, if you need me you know where I am...

French electronic pop supremos Air at the Sydney Opera House, 2008.
They really were that fuzzy.

King Monkey himself, Ian Brown, taken from the very front of the stage at the Metro in Sydney. That's about a metre away. And it's still blurred.

The Charlatans' Tim Burgess peaks around the corner at Sydney's Forum.
No really, I promise it is him.

Rick Nielson of rock monsters Cheap Trick - Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne.
Don't let the relative clarity of this shot fool you to believe the
pictures improved over time - every single light in the venue was on when I took it.

The incomparable Cougar Flashy at the Factory in Sydney,
replete with Mexican day of the dead person. He was aces.

One of Daft Punk rocks robots and humans alike at the Sydney showgrounds, 2007.
Before you ask, yes, it is a photograph of a giant TV screen.

If you want to taste the sweat dripping from some of your other favourite rock stars, why not come back tomorrow for a bit more of the same?

Get Well Soon

Best wishes to Charlatans drummer Jon Brookes who is in hospital this week after collapsing during a gig in Philadelphia, US. He is now back in the UK being treated for a brain tumour but doctors say he should be OK.

I've met Jon on a couple of occasions and he is a very obliging and humble chap, not to mention someone who gives everything every gig he plays. As I've noted a few times, the Charlatans are as tight and powerful a band as you can see in 2010 and this is due in no small part to Brookes' skills and his mutual understanding with bassist Martin Blunt.

Jon will obviously play no part in the forthcoming Charlatans world tour, with Pete Salisbury from the Verve covering his duties. This is a great shame but at least it appears he'll be OK in the long run, which is all that really counts.

Jon Brookes, Lyon 2008 (courtesy thecharlatans.net)

The band have of course faced similar crises in the past and have faced every challenge like prize fighters on the ropes. It may sound crass out of its 1996 context but their 'we've lost our mate. there will be no change. we are rock' statement on the death of keyboard player Rob Collins galvanised them and led to some of the best music of their career. Here's hoping they find some of that spirit to get them through this time and inspire Jon to a speedy recovery.

For more details visit thecharlatans.net/news

Wish Fulfillment

"We're banning Charlatans fans from our gigs because they all have moustaches."

Nicky Wire, Manic Street Preachers (1992)

OK, so when I said this week that I’m an old git that only gets excited about touring bands when its embarrassingly personal it wasn’t necessarily an open invitation to every band I’ve irrationally adored to come play for me in Australia. That said I do very much appreciate the Manic Street Preachers and Charlatans getting off their bottoms and scheduling tours down under for this November. Whatever your reasons, thank you.

Clearly the Charlatans weren’t put off by their first ever Australian tour just two years ago despite what was technically stalking by me and my friend Julie (who achieved one of her proudest moments in life helping Tim Burgess rearrange his sweaty fringe – at his request). Northwich’s grooviest fuckers will be back to promote their 11^th studio album Who We Touch,out through Shock on 17 September.

I understand the words ‘11^th studio album’ aren’t generally associated with a band at their peak, but 2008’s You Cross My Path was a little gem and I can assure you the three times I saw them in 2007/08 were as good as any other time in their career. The truth is a night out with the Charlatans is always worth your bus fare and even a taxi home, if only so you can experience the high of Sproston Green live. When you’ve followed a band every step of the way for 20 years love tends to obscure all logic but if the idea of dancing euphorically for a couple of hours appeals in any way then just take my word for it and go.

Tickets for the Charlatans November 2010 tour of Australia go on sale Friday 20 August through Custom-Made or from venues: Wed 10th - Brisbane, Hi-Fi; Thurs 11th - Sydney, Metro Theatre; Fri 12th - Melbourne, Billboard;Sat 13th - Adelaide, Fowlers Live; Mon 15th - Fremantle, Metropolis

Having given up on ever seeing the Manic Street Preachers again, news that James Dean Bradfield, Sean Moore and Nicky Wire have decided to temporarily swap South Wales for New South Wales after an 11 year absence has left me both cock and a-hoop. If my love of the Charlatans (and no Nicky, I’ve never had a moustache) is about something spontaneous and irrepressible that I can’t resist - my devotion to the fortunes of the Manic Street Preachers is more akin to supporting a football team. I feel like I no longer have any choice in the matter; for as long as there is a Manic Street Preachers I am doomed to follow. It’s no longer about whether they win or lose – indeed losing is pretty expected - but that they exist at all that draws me in. Not that I expect many in Australia to share my glee. In all my time living here I haven’t met anyone who shares my enthusiasm for the Manics

This isn't unique to Australia. Apart from two or three unlikely years in the mid-nineties the Manic Street Preachers (and their fans) have operated under the old Millwall FC adage of 'nobody loves us and we don't care'. Hated by many in the pre-Britpop indie world for their punk-style sloganeering, big-gob proclamations ('We will always hate Slowdive more than Hitler') and tendency towards mainstream American rawk, they have been derided since their post Holy Bible/Everything Must Go popular nadir for being a sanitised version of the band they used to be.

What's missing here is the story and having lived it with them (well, you know, from my own bedroom) I will always love the Manic Street Preachers more than Pavement, Belle and Sebastian or any other bands of a similar vintage that Pitchfork says it is OK to like. It still excites me to think about even the idea of four Babycham-drinking working class boys from the Welsh Valleys dressed in Top Shop blouses and glittery make-up spouting Camus, Chuck D, Octave Mirbeau and Sylvia Plath being the biggest band in the world. It’s the kind of excitement that inspired me to walk to one of their gigs through dodgy areas of Dublin dressed in bright white army surplus clothes, a Belgian army helmet and a ton make up. I got an apple thrown at me by some teenager, which is getting off quite lightly really considering what I looked like (though the green stain never came out which was a shame).

The Manics' story is Control, Billy Elliot and Rocky wrapped into one tragic and beautiful epic, and yet many people can't see past the soundtrack. If I may steal an analogy from the current election coverage, the Manics are a bit like the Australian Green Party; loved too much by their supporters and hated too much by their detractors. The result is a distorted public view of a band who deserve more credit than history has afforded them, but perhaps - based on music alone - not as much as their devotees think.

Even I can't claim the three or four piece Manics were ever able to consistently create music that matched their lofty ambitions. Still songs like Faster, Design for Life, You Love Us, Too Cold Here, Of Walking Abortion, No Surface all Feeling, If You Tolerate This Your Children will Be Next, Motown Junk, PCP, Black Dog on My Shoulder and Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky are reason enough for anyone to go and see them live.

More encouragingly the band are coming off the back of a genuine return to form in the album Journal for Plague Lovers. It might just be that I like the Manics more when James Dean Bradfield is struggling to sing all the words (Plague Lovers' lyrics were solely drawn from notes and poems left to the band by Richie Edwards when he went missing in 1995) but it was the first of their albums to really grab me for a decade (the remix album, featuring the Horrors, Four Tet, Underworld and Fuck Buttons amongst others was also surprisingly worthwhile, unlike the majority of similar projects).

Like the Charlatans, the Manics also have a new album to flog, Postcards from a Young Man (the cover of which features a very Edwards-like photograph of a young Tim Roth). Described by Bradfield as "one last shot at mass communication" and Wire as "heavy metal Tamla Motown. Van Halen playing the Supremes" it will no doubt promise more than it can ever deliver. But hey, that's the Manic Street Preachers and if that's what it takes to be able to share a room with them one last time, then I for one am happy.

Manic Street Preachers’ Postcards From A Young Man Tour:
Saturday 13th November – The Hi-Fi, Brisbane
Monday 15th November – The Metro, Sydney
Thursday 18th November – HQ, Adelaide
Saturday 20th November -The Forum, Melbourne
Monday 22nd November – Metropolis Freemantle

Tickets on sale Wednesday 18th August

How High?

News that the Charlatans are about to visit Australia for the first time in their 19 year history will probably raise more eyebrows than blood pressures, but I must admit it's got me excited. I didn't think we'd ever see them over here - so much so that I changed a flight last November so I could see them in Manchester. Sometimes seeing one of your favourite bands is like catching up with friends from your past - a good chance to reminisce and comment on who has put on a bit of weight.

That night in Manchester [their spiritual if not their actual home] the Charlatans were a lean mean shadow-boxing machine; I was blown away. It's not just the oft talked about tragedy that has kept the band together long after their contemporaries have gone. This is a band of mates, and importantly a band who can really play. Two decades of touring together has left them tight as a coiled spring and backed by a catalogue of songs as diverse as Tim Burgess' singing styles they played a show that's still ringing in my ears nine months later. The set was nicely diverse and touched on a bit of every album (and yes, they played indie-chestnut The Only One I Know if that's what you want to know).

I'll admit (if it's not obvious) I have a huge soft spot for the Charlatans (I once got to hang out with Rob Collins after a gig about a year before he was killed, and a nicer genius you'll never meet) but latest album You Cross My Path is a genuine return to form after their last two patchy efforts. Combine that with a chance to hear One to Another and Weirdo live, as well as one of the greatest set-closers in rock history in Sproston Green and you've got a pretty good night out.

There's currently only two gigs scheduled (November 13 at Melbourne's Queensbridge Hotel and the next night at Sydney's Forum) - so get in quick for tickets. Satisfaction guaranteed...