Ah C86. I’d have probably loved you if I was around at the time. Full of jangly guitar bands like Primal Scream and The Wedding Present, unlike many bands of that era though, I still hold onto the Wedding Present as a band who still produce interesting music – now in their Cinerama-songs-arranged-for-The-Wedding-Present era, Take Fountain is an album with several stand out moments.

But tonight wasn’t about the new album, this was the George Best 20th Anniversary tour which revisited all of the towns and cities originally played by The Wedding Present 20 years ago after the release of George Best, so that the band could play the whole of the album in its entirety. This is very similar to the ATP Don’t Look Back concept, only – hurrah – it happens outside of London.

I’m still unsure about how I feel about going to see the performance of a historic album. On the one hand, I think that the £15 entry should be better spent on discovering new bands and randomly purchasing recommended releases on Amazon and feeling the thrill of discovering someone new and exciting, and adding more favourite songs ever to the list. On the other hand, it’s The Wedding Present – and they’re playing George Best!!

George Best has always sounded like an album for small spaces and sweaty gigs. It’s a rapid guitar assault with a speed of playing less commonly associated with simple pop tunes. It’s not an album of sustained notes and chords and for this reason; it’s not an album that lends itself to the open spaces and high roof of Birmingham Academy.

But The Wedding Present have always been weirdly watchable for me, whatever the venue, and David Gedge always makes the effort to share his humour with the audience. The songs are short and tuneful, and when C86 veered off into Twee, no-one really followed up on what The Wedding Present were doing apart from The Wedding Present.

In a lot of ways, I’d really like to hear a Wedding Present influence in more bands - the rapid guitar work coupled with simple yet catchy pop tunes - because I feel that this sound has been tarmacked over by successive rewritings of music history. Maybe someone could set up a scheme called ‘Gedgewise’ where George Best is given out to bands starting up -as a good catch up with music’s past is just as essential as discovering it’s future.

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