Back where it all began: David Gedge outside Leeds University Union, where The Wedding Present perform tonight
DAVID Gedge returns to Leeds University tonight with The Wedding Present, playing Stylus to mark 40 years since he formed the band in his days of studying Mathematics on campus.
Billed as “Back To Where It All Began”, this University of Leeds Union gig brought David back north from his Brighton home on April 14 to re-visit early landmarks in The Wedding Present story to promote both today’s anniversary celebration and York writer-director Matt Aston’s upcoming musical Reception, inspired by Gedge’s songs for The Wedding Present and Cinerama. More on that August 22 to September 6 show at The Warehouse, Slung Low’s theatre space in Holbeck, later.
Tonight will be the first of two Yorkshire engagements for The Wedding Present in quick succession. Tomorrow, Gedge’s band will be hooking up with Peter Hook & The Light (Best of Joy Division & New Order), The Farm and Spear Of Destiny on the Interzone bill at Scarborough Spa.
“We did it in Newcastle last year too. It seems to be Peter Hook’s festival – Interzone is a Joy Division song, isn’t it,” says David, 65. Doors open at 4pm with tickets available at seetickets.com and scarboroughspa.co.uk.
Charles HutchPress met up with David on the day of the photo-shoot, over a light bite in the university student union refectory, the scene of many a gig down the years.
“If I’m honest with you, I studied Mathematics here because I found it quite easy,” he says. “I remember at school finding Maths lessons a doddle. I just clicked with it. My other A-levels were Biology and Physics, and I never knew how I would then use it, but I’d always been in bands. It’s what I’d always wanted to do, really from the age of five, where there are photographs of me playing the recorder, pretending to be in a band.
“From schooldays onwards, I was in bands. The Simple answer is I never ‘decided’ to do it; it was just always going to be the case. I thought, ‘I’ll go to university, doing Maths will be dead easy and I’ll have a lot of time to do other things’.
“It turned out to be more difficult than I expected, and a lot of work, so I kind of regretted doing it – but I got a 2.2, then started to do a MSc, but then the band took off.”
Rising from the ashes of The Lost Pandas, the band “kind of existed from 1983-84 but with different line-ups”. The first single, Go Out And Get ‘Em, Boy!, emerged in May 1985 – hence tonight’s 40th anniversary gig” – with vocalist and guitarist Gedge and bassist Keith Gregory by then being joined by fellow Leeds University alumni Peter Solowka (guitar) and Shaun Charman (drums).
“Actually our first gig was in Allerton Bywater, a mining village half an hour from here, at The Shires Club. The second, third and fourth were here, at the university. We’ve played the Refectory at least once, maybe twice; the Tartan Bar, the R H Evans Lounge and the Riley Smith Hall as we were getting bigger.
“This will be the first time we’ve played Stylus. We haven’t played the university for years, as we usually play either the O2 Academy or, for a smaller gig, the Brudenell Social Club.”
David has never kept count of how many musicians have passed through the Wedding Present ranks in the past four decades. “I don’t know how you define it, because sometimes you need a stand-in and we’ve had musicians come in as extra players,” he says.
Tonight, David will be fronting the line-up he has had in place for a couple of years: Vincenzo Lammi on drums; Paul Blackburn on bass and Rachael Wood on guitars (and vocals too). “Weirdly, like me, they’re all based in Brighton, though Vinny is from Sheffield, Paul, from Southport, and Rachael, from Derby, so we’re all northerners. Brighton’s a nice place to be, but it’s expensive.”
Playing in The Wedding Present after 40 years “feels the same”. “It hasn’t changed. The strange thing is, if it’s 40 years, you think of The Rolling Stones or Status Quo, but actually, no, it’s The Wedding Present now,” says David.
“Rock’n’roll was a youth culture, but those who who enjoy it now are our age and are still going to gigs, so the whole genre has grown.”
The Wedding Present, Back Where It All Began, Stylus, University of Leeds, tonight, doors 7pm. Box office: leedsunionevents.com.