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Chilling in Cheshire.
Just found out that the fragrant writer Andrew O'Hagan has a new novel out, titled "Mayflies" {with quite a "World Won't Listen"-ish cover?}, a tale of teenage friendships found & lost, which includes a recollection of a trip from the West Coast of Scotland down to see The Smiths at the Festival of the Tenth Summer in 1986 at Manchester's G-MEX.
Some of the reviews have quoted lines such as ~
"Morrissey came brandishing a licence, a whole manner of permission, as if a new kind of belonging could be made from feeling left out, like nobody knew you as he did … every word and every guitar lick felt like a statement only they could make, and only we could hear, those songs rolling from the stage to irrigate our lives."
"Morrissey hits the air like a chip pan fire"
And so forth.
Any excuse to re-link Mr O'Hagan's finely perfumed piece on Moz, from the "London Review of Books ", in 2004, in which he mentions said Summer of '86 ~
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n05/andrew-o-hagan/cartwheels-over-broken-glass?referrer=https://www.google.com/
Cartwheels over broken glass indeed!
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That was a great week in Manchester, there were actually 10 events that took place over the week, with the G Mex gig being the finale. I saw James for the first time at the 5th event that took place at The Russell club. The G mex event was fantastic and The Smiths played a really upbeat set to I think the largest crowd they ever played to in the UK.
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