Manchester Academy
20/12/25
I just had to go, y’know, the music of Black Grape, espcecially the vibe & the feel, is to me one of the masterworks of the 1990s. Thirty years, as well, have pass’d since their first album was releas’d. I just had to go, even if it was in Manchester, & not Scotland.
Of course I had to go – the recent death of the inimitable Stone Roses bass – player, Mani, reminded me with stark vision of how finite the times of my favorite musicians will be.
So down I went to England in a cloud of nostalgic memories. As we pass’d Preston I cast my mind back to my 18th birthday when I saw Oasis play at Avenham Park in 1994. Two years later Black Grape were born – same era, same magic!
The gig, the last of the tour, was at Manchester Acedemy, hard by the Metroplitan University. I got there just as Dodgy were finishing their set, who’d been supporrting Black Grape all tour. Reyt lads, reyt music, proper classics. There were people attending just for them, I’m sure, there was a fair few scattering of Dodgy T-shirts floating about. At one point during the songs, singer Nigel Clark hinted that the tour had been struck by some kind of Black Grape flu, & everyone had it some capacity.
Then came the Grape, & the huskiness of Kermit’s voice proved that there was an active lurgy devastating the tour. ‘This is not the flu man,’ quipp’d king jester himself, the ever-smiling Shaun Ryder, who admits to the audience they’re getting thro the gig purely on codine & morphine.
depsite such a biological hamperment, the tunes were banging enough to keep me vibeing, for sure, & we enter’d a state of more than just appreaciate audience members, becoming something of spectators at an Olympic event, so strenuous & heroic were the 60-year-old Kermit’s efforts. Getting on a bit,, the flu, but still effing funky.
Damo
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