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The legendary Manband from Wales...
...is, without doubt, one of my all-time favourite bands. Oh come on, any band that can come up with a song lyrics like:
"I like to eat bananas because they got no bones / I like marijuana because it gets me stoned."
has got to be worth listening to. Yeah, no prizes for guessing that I don't subscribe to the dumbass theory that smoking grass leads you to try harder drugs. No it doesn't. It leads you to giggling, raiding the fridge and falling asleep. If someone is going to end up hooked on coke or smack, they will do, irrespective of whether they smoke a joint at any point in their lives. But that particular avenue is best explored in the Rant section at some point, I think. Back to the Manband...
I have seen Man live on quite a few separate occasions over the years. My friend Mick Schofield first got me to listen to them in 1982, by playing me "Be Good To Yourself", "Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics" and "Slow Motion". He then progressed through "Greasy Truckers", "Padget Rooms" and "Christmas at the Patti". I was impressed. As we worked our way through the back catalogue, he inevitably dug out "Maximum Darkness" and that was the one that really sold me. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe it was a combination of the music and the wicked Rick Griffin cover, who can say? Certainly, I still love the version of 7171-551 from that album.
"I like to eat bananas because they got no bones / I like marijuana because it gets me stoned."
has got to be worth listening to. Yeah, no prizes for guessing that I don't subscribe to the dumbass theory that smoking grass leads you to try harder drugs. No it doesn't. It leads you to giggling, raiding the fridge and falling asleep. If someone is going to end up hooked on coke or smack, they will do, irrespective of whether they smoke a joint at any point in their lives. But that particular avenue is best explored in the Rant section at some point, I think. Back to the Manband...
I have seen Man live on quite a few separate occasions over the years. My friend Mick Schofield first got me to listen to them in 1982, by playing me "Be Good To Yourself", "Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics" and "Slow Motion". He then progressed through "Greasy Truckers", "Padget Rooms" and "Christmas at the Patti". I was impressed. As we worked our way through the back catalogue, he inevitably dug out "Maximum Darkness" and that was the one that really sold me. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe it was a combination of the music and the wicked Rick Griffin cover, who can say? Certainly, I still love the version of 7171-551 from that album.
Man - Reading Festival 1983
Setlist: Spunk Rock / C'mon / Talk About A Morning / The Ride and The View / Asylum / Romain / Bananas
Anyway, my first opportunity to see the legendary Manband live was at the 1983 Reading Festival and what a performance it was. For many years I had a crappy tape of that day's performance taken from the Friday Rock Show broadcast. Back in those days my Fi was not too Hi and I made do with this until a couple of years ago when I acquired the CD.
I still love that Reading '83 set to bits and am quite prepared to admit that it is purely a sentimental attachment, simply because I was there. That said, it was a great day (Friday afternoon, to be precise!) and they did play a storming set. The version of "Asylum" is still one of my faves and was the only time I ever saw them play that track live. However, I could still willfully slay the engineer who turned the tape off because he thought they'd finished after "Bananas", forever depriving us of the tremendous rendition of "Hard Way to Live". Yes, it was a long time ago, but happiness is a warm grudge.
It was to be another ten years before I saw them live again when, in February 1993, they played a gig in Blackpool, for my friend Mick. Another five years would pass until I saw them live again, this time on their 30th Anniversary Tour.
Mark L. Potts
The God of Thunder
December 2001
