In the late ‘80s the Happy Mondays took guitar-based pop and grafted it with house music and, in the process, showed all the indie kids who were mourning the death of the Smiths, that it was okay to dance again at rock gigs. Helping to recast their native Manchester as Madchester, at their best the Happy Mondays were a glorious blend of
groovy soul and hip-shaking pop that was buoyed by the most infectious beats of the decade. Although the band broke up in 1992 and since then have had several comebacks thwarted for various reasons, Live In Barcelona suggests that almost twenty years since their inception, the band has never been more relevant. Opening with a short montage of the Barcelona freeway, a few interviews with fans that are lined around the block waiting to get inside the club, and a short instrumental intro, the show kicks in with “Kinky Afro� and from there it never lets up. Dressed in a dark ski hat, which hangs low enough to cover half of his sunglasses, singer Shaun Ryder, noticeably heavier since the band’s heyday, is still loaded with a kind of thuggish pop charm. He rarely smiles, he swears, he smokes, he beatboxes and he seldom moves from his spot in the middle of the stage. But even relatively sedentary, Ryder has the kind of enigmatic charisma that a frontman needs to keep things moving along. Of course, having Bez, the mercurial, mono-named, maraca-wielding dancer moving around the stage in prowling bursts of Olympian flexibility, is a suitable decoy to keep one from wondering why Ryder seems unwilling to even take a step. Old favorites like “Step On� and “24 Hour Party People� sizzle with the same vibrancy they always did, while “Hallelujah� and “Loose Fit� are as infectious and danceable as ever. Good to have these boys back. Now, if only the Stone Roses…
Extras: A Pint With Shaun Ryder, Photo Gallery, Soundcheck Footage, Biography.
-Alex Green
(Release date: June 27, 2006)
