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Britpop is back in vogue with Blur bringing out a new album and announcing huge sold out summer Wembley Stadium shows, Pulp playing a big Finsbury Park gig this summer, and the Gallagher brothers constant teasing of an Oasis reunion in anticipation of the 30th anniversary of Definitely Maybe.
It is a fitting occasion for the reformed Sleeper to be headlining iconic venue The Garage in Highbury as part of its series of 30th anniversary shows.
The North London hotspot has been going since May 1993, with Britpop stalwarts Pulp the first band to play there.
Since then the North London gem has played host to a who’s who of UK and international stars including Oasis, Arctic Monkeys and The 1975.
In a brilliantly dramatic entrance, the band take the stage to Nancy Sinatra’s timeless classic James Bond soundtrack You Only Live Twice – a highly apt choice for a band who split in 1998, only to return to their former glory and reuniting in 2017.
Frontwoman Louise Wener is met with rapturous applause her T shirt adorned with the ironic slogan ‘Rock Hag”, looking as sultry as she did in her 90’s heyday and her distinctive vocals sounding typically slick on opener Cellophane.
Shortly after Louise declares that Sleeper’s most successful album ‘It Girl’ is 27 years old, adding sentimentally “It’s a night of memories”.
The Garage was the gig they always wanted to play as they lived nearby, but “It was Elastica and Shed Seven instead who regularly played here” she wryly adds.
She says they last played here on New Year’s Eve in 1994, asking the crowd who was there which gets a few rowdy shouts near the front.
Their superb cover of Blondie classic Atomic sends the crowd dancing in wild abandon, passionately singing every word back, and then builds into a brilliant medley of Joy Division’s seminal Love Will Tear Us Apart, providing a heartfelt reminder of the recent 43rd anniversary of Ian Curtis’s death.
Signature song Inbetweener Louise explains has a special place in the band’s hearts, and they were living just down the road when they found out it had gone into the 20.
Typical of Sleeper, the song has great tongue in cheek lyrics; ‘He’s not a prince, he’s not a king, she’s not a work of art or anything’, which are sung at full volume.
Louise oozes charisma, commanding the stage and winning the crowd over with her witty banter, saying the band’s musical influences were The Partridge Family and The Smiths as ironic lyrics feature heavily but with none of Morrissey’s barbed tone.
After briefly exiting the stage, they return for an encore, with a rare acoustic version of We Should Be Together, a hit with their cult-like following tonight.
In a hilarious anecdote guitarist Jon Stewart describes a time at George Michael’s studio when he was playing on John Lenin’s white Steinway piano that he had bought for £1.4 million, and accidently scratched the top with it his metal cuff link, now visible in a glass box in the Strawberry Fields museum in Liverpool.
Their penultimate song pleases the crowd with the punk rock edge of Pixies classic Wave of Mutilation. Finally, Sale of the Century has the Garage gleefully roaring every word in a fantastic finale to a very special night indeed.
