Inspiral Carpets

Inspiral Carpets at the Manning Bar, Sydney 04.08.2023

As I walked into the O2 Academy in Leeds, DJ Dave Sweetmore was firing up the crowd with a collection of Madchester classics. Banger after 90s banger filled the space in between support and headline act and it worked like a dream.

Nottingham was one of the first places outside of Manchester that Inspiral Carpets played, and they returned this month for a show at Rescue Rooms...

Key to their relatability is organist Clint Boon, his iconic bowlcut of yore long gone, now looking like a mod Alan Rickman

Here in the Concorde, a near-capacity crowd “moo” appreciatively in celebration of Manchester.

Today while the reformed Stone Roses drew 60000 people to Heaton Park the Carpets’s appeal is considerably more selective.

The haircuts were considerably shorter, and maybe the clobber was a few sizes bigger than ‘back in the day’, but with the amount of Adidas trainees, Italian sportswear and sun hats been worn in the queue outside the Leadmill, it wouldn’t have taken a genius to deduce that one of the legends of the Madchester