Northern Uproar - Night & Day Cafe - 23.7.04

After the Mock Turtles reformed lets face it anything is possible. Just a few weeks after the mighty prince of pap Peter Andre made his comeback in Manchester, its time for the musketeers of Britpop - Heaton Moor's Northern Uproar who set the world ablaze when they were tipped to sail to the dizzy heights of the Gallagher brothers. Ok, so it didn't quite happen and they had a reputation that ranks alongside Northside as one of those bands we'd rather forget.

So here we are at the Night & Day with Leon Mayer and a depleted 3 piece version of their former selves...presumably the other member was washing his hair or something. 2 minutes round the corner the Milltown Brothers are playing at the Roadhouse in yet another shameless display. While Northern Uproar have their place in history as a bit of a bad joke, they were never really as bad as the critics claimed which makes tonight's show even more of a disappointment. "Rollercoaster" resembles little, if nothing, of what we remember the original to be, "Town" doesn't get an airing and it's only really "From A Window" of the old school Northern Uproar set that stands up tall and has the crowd in the palm of their hands. The new songs suffer from the stripped down line-up and end up as rudimentary punk songs, yet have none of the punch and end up sounding like a bunch of 12 year olds have picked up guitars for the first time and decided to play a gig two weeks later.

In interviews Leon seems hopeful that the band are going to break through and do it their way this time. I just don't see them rising above their past and in truth what they're bashing out now makes their previous efforts seem like the combined efforts of Lennon, Wilson, Richards and Jagger. There are certain bands in Manchester which we'd be grateful to have back tomorrow. - bands like Marion and The Space Monkeys - but Leon you might as well go back to the hairdressing.

Alex McCann

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