Half Man Half Biscuit, China Crisis, the Farm, June 1986
The Typhoo Tea Music Festival. But they forgot to put their product in the hospitality tent.
Festivals – all-dayers or all-weekenders – can be a bit of an endurance test when you’re there to review them. Sometimes it feels like an event, like the Futurama festival. And sometimes, like this one, it’s definitely a non-event.
It looks as if they had a pretty good cross-section of the happening bands at the time, as well as some who weren’t or shouldn’t have been. But lack of audience and lack of atmosphere can kill an event.
I don’t know who “Transworld” were but it looks like they were the latest sponsor of the festival gardens, formerly known as Liverpool Garden Festival and part of the “regeneration” that was supposed to make things better for the city after the Toxteth riots. (To be fair, the 1984 garden festival was pretty good but there was no exit strategy and it fell into disrepair and disrepute over the years.)
Anyway, I wanted to run this review because it made me laugh. I hope you enjoy it too.
TEA AND BISCUITS
THE TYPHOO MUSIC FESTIVAL
Transworld Festival Gardens, Liverpool
Melody Maker, 21 June 86
IT'S 11 o'clock on a Saturday morning and White House Puppies, one of Liverpool's less interesting up and coming bands, are playing to an audience composed of two gardeners with wellies and fishing nets, one yawning security man with breakfast, a handful of friends with cameras, and one old lady, chair solidly settled in front of the stage, with tartan rug, shopping bag, and flask. And me. The group have as much presence as the audience. This is what was billed as the biggest local musical event of the year?
It was a fine idea: a diversity of music spread over three summer days, with jazz, country, rock and variety stages running concurrently and three big concerts in the evenings. The old Garden Festival site was the venue, and local industry, Typhoo tea, lost the money.
The rock stage was to be devoted to local talent, but when it opened with Gerry Marsden and closed with The Searchers you had to wonder what they meant by the best of Liverpool rock. Friday saw the audiences barely equal to the numbers on stage, but Black, the Balcony, and Third Man proved that they could be exciting on another occasion and suggested that the best Liverpool music is something that is not quite pop.
The best thing I saw all day was in the Variety Tent, where St Helens' Howitzer Brothers played to an audience of five. They could, I suppose, be called alternative cabaret, they rant rarely (and usually with satirical intent), sing occasionally, and act almost all the time. Their poems are worthy of the name and can silence and resurrect laughter in seconds.
Saturday was worse. The wind blew, the organisation broke down. Wake Up Afrika, High Five, Jennifer John and Gone To Earth were talent wasted and the rest of the bill were time wasted. Saturday night, though, was the nearest they came to success.
The hall was full at last, though you still wondered about the line-up. Cook Da Books playing lightweight pop songs with the finesse of a heavy rock band and murder a few Beatles songs on the way.
Half Man Half Biscuit, who, in view of the sponsors, should really have been headlining, almost made up for it. The music is friendly and aggressive, like the scallies that make up the noisiest part of the audience and, unlike the scallies, offbeat. The songs are tuneful and odd, subverting the pop formula just enough. The words are mostly audible, if you listen, which the fans, who only want "Trumpton Riots" tend not to. Nigel looks like a misfit, going from disdain to disgust, and everything the group could be is at odds with the attempted cosiness of the occasion. The audience might smile but the group never do. They end with "I Hate Nerys Hughes", surely an all-time punk-rock classic.
China Crisis hardly seem the group to follow this, but then they're all scally bands these days. They're harder than you think, however, and what they lack in Biscuit's passion and personality they make up for in professionalism and good humour.
A good part of the set is songs from the forthcoming album, and, like "The Understudy", big and dramatic, they're harder and funkier than the old wistful romanticism of "Wishful Thinking" and "Christian".
Sunday was warm, the £1 programmes were down to 50p, and the rock stage hosted some acts which kindness leaves anonymous. This was supposed to be the best of Liverpool music? If I'd spent £4 on them I would have felt very short-changed indeed. Jegsy Dodd and the sons Of Harry Cross were an honourable exception, and The Farm saved the day at the end with the relief of a tune and a taste of their new single "Some People", as good as anything they've done.
It finished with the Searchers, whose cabaret nostalgia would have been better in the variety tent, and I began to wish I'd been there instead. Even the Wirral Pipe Band or the Liverpool Ladies Barbershop group would have been better than this. And Typhoo forgot to put their product in the hospitality tent.
Back in the 21st century
I was happy this week to read the latest Substack from
, with lots to interest fans of post-punk Liverpool music. There is news of Bill Drummond's latest project, plus some intriguing musical connections between Liverpool and Scotland. A fascinating read.More from Half Man Half Biscuit
Here’s my 1985 interview with the band.
More from the Farm
Here’s my 1984 interview with the Farm.
Great witty review of the Typhoo! Recall it at the time, cheers.
Can’t beat a bit of Half man half Biscuit, listened to them on John Peel shows back in the day. Probably got some recorded sessions on cassette in the loft somewhere? Must go digging 😎🎸