Saw Boys Wonder earlier this week.
Remember them?
No, probably not.
Kinda weird. So many men in the audience, some with flamboyant hats to hide their baldness, all singing along with great gusto to an 80s boy band that never made it. The twins’ ears are still magnificent. Graham on guitar was out with Haircut 100 recently. Did you know they’re still touring? No, me neither.
Old footage from when they were eager young start ups was playing on the screen behind the band. The lively eager youngsters on the screen did no favours to the older slower version, lumbering through their set like a Pontins house band. If their younger selves could see them now...
This wasn’t helped by the oddness of
the venue where the gig space was crowded with armchairs, coffee tables, sofas, wobbly vintage bar stools, so the audience were kinda crowded around the edges like parents at a school concert where all the kids had vacated their seats to go get ready for the play. And no stage lights, just that generic wash of slightly-orange red.
The songs were all startlingly familiar, although I can’t have seen them more than 2 or 3 times back then. Being older and more seasoned, I was able to recognise the various hooks phrases and other snippets from the gentler slopes of pub rock, from pop songs, adverts, and TV theme tunes of the late 60s and 70s that strung together through each song, like an old charm bracelet storing memories. Was it deliberate or accidental, all their own tunes written from the scrap books in their heads? There being no discernible irony on show (despite the awkward RnR guitar stance, the incongruous peculiarity of a pair of marigolds tucked into a pocket, and a noticeable resemblance to Vic Reeves’ glasses) I decided it must be accidental. Especially because there were a couple of strongly signposted references that were repeated. So… Boris the Spider bass run: accidental; The Sweeney theme tune: on purpose.
They’ve reformed because finally their shelved 1987 LP is being released. Not remastered, just as it was. Some suggest that Boys Wonder were ahead of their time and if they’d emerged alongside These Animal Men and Menswear they could have had a fairly decent run. If time had stopped moving for the band as it did for the LP we might have something vaguely interesting: a little bit of retro-vanguard pop. As it is, it’s very also-ran. I’m glad I saw them, so that I know not to bother again.
Having said all that, the other day someone asked me what’s the worst gig I’ve ever been too. My answer: I’ve never been to a bad gig cos every single live show I’ve ever seen is astonishing to me: the writing, the rehearsing, the planning, the turning up on time, the complex confluence of conflict, love, fuck ups, hope and ambition all arriving on stage at the same time, to play for me what matters most to them.
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