Madpost – July 1996
Welcome to another monthly issue of the Madpost!
Sorry this issue is a few days late but I have been snowed under with work and have had little time to produce this.
You can tell summer is finally here due to the fact that all the UK students who were subscribed have gone off home till September and mailing list traffic has become only a tiny little trickle. Still, with more people subscribing all the time perhaps it will pick up even before the students return.
Right, without further bother, lets get this issue undeway…
The following was taken from the Daily Mirror on May 31st 1996 and kindly typed in by Mark Bryant. For all those who missed the exciting news of BAND RE-FORMATION and NEW MATERIAL, here is that article again.
Suggs, now 35 and the father of 2 children admits he was devastated when the band finally split for good.
It was a very traumatic time for me he mourns
But you can only go on with something if it’s fun – and we reached the stage where we weren’t enjoying it.
And so Suggs struck out on his solo career and things have worked out just fine.
I get kids singing my new single Cecilia through my letterbox every evening. he says proudly.
I think that’s a compliment.
And now Suggs says that after Madstock III, Madness are going to get together again.
Apart from performing at Madstock we are ready to reform. he says.
We’ll have new songs and a new sound. It will be really exciting. The band are really raring to go.
Time to dig out those Baggy Trousers, then.
On Saturday June 22nd, twelve members of the mailing list met up at London’s “Finsbury Park” for a day of nutty happenings at the Madstock concert.
Although the set meet times were either 2 or 4pm a steady trickle of members arrived all through the afternoon. First on the scene was the ever famous Bex who is alot quieter in real life than on the mailing list but still enjoys a good laugh.
Soon after, Mike joined the group. He’d traveled all the way from California in the USA and was VERY excited at being part of the Madstock 3 celebrations. Little did Mike know at this point but he was to become the butt of many light-hearted jokes throughout the day due to the fact that he bought about 6 of everything (programmes, posters) for jealous friends back in the States who couldn’t make it. With the amount of stuff he bought it’s amazing he made it home 
Next came Nathan, the Kiwi who relocated to London only a month or so before. Nathan came wearing a “Camden Town” T-shirt which attracted the attention of everyone else who was there, asking where he has got it from. It turned out that it was a re-print of the single cover which he had borrowed from a friend and had it printed on a T-shirt. As far as I know this was his first Madness concert he had been too as he kept telling everyone that it was “Amazing!”, “Fantastic”.
Following Nathan came Stefan and Frank wearing their DIY “The Business” T-shirts which looked excellent. These two were going to be Nathan’s drinking partners for the day but even they would have trouble keeping up with him!
A while later and Yvonne, the “lurker” of the mailing list appeared and proceded to tell us all how much trouble she’d had travelling across London to get to the show. Still, Bex was happy as this meant she wasn’t the only female at the meet.
Inbar Raz made his entrance to the meet by displaying a huge “Hey You Don’t Watch That, Watch This. It’s The Madness Mailing List” banner on one of the concert perimeter walls for all to see. He was very easy to spot, and a large cheer of “Inbar!” came from the members who had already arrived. Other Madness fans looked on baffled!
To pass some of the time Nathan decided that he would really annoy his friend back in New Zealand with the fact that he was at the concert and his friend wasn’t by phoning him up with his mobile at 90pence a minute, and getting them out of bed. Well, it was 3 in the morning down under!!!
A short time later the meetup was graced with the presence of Jacco and a few of his chums who had come all the way from the Netherlands just to get to the concert. Out popped his disposable camera and he got snapping away, collecting material for additions to his web page.
Finally the meetup was complete when we were all graced by the presence of the Madness guru himself – “Peter Gardner”. After we had bowed our heads in recognition it was time to move on to find a place to spend the rest of the day.
After a bit of searching a spot in the main arena was found where we could all locate ourselves. Much merriment was to be had in our little spot, with Nathan getting even more pissed than he was already, and the rest of us using his mobile phone to contact friends in different parts of the country. Nathan started shouting and we all assumed he was getting pissed off with us using his phone. We we wrong. He was annoyed because we wouldn’t let him speak to our friends we were phoning!!!!
As for the concert itself, I think there have been enough EXCELLENT reviews by people to as make yet another review pointless so I’ll leave that out…
The listing of people who were part of the Mailing List Meet were…
Inbar, Bex, Robert (me), Yvonne, Stefan Gertheinrich, Frank Dirksmeir,Richard, Nathan, Mike, Pete (the almighty one!), and Jacco!Yes, you have read that correctly. For the first time since 1986 Madness aired some new material at one of their shows!!
Three new songs were played as part of their Madstock 3 set and proved that there is still life in the band yet. The first song was in the sort of style as the songs from the “Mad Not Mad” album, the second was more get-up-and-go, and sounded more like something from Suggs’ new album but thankfully without the booming bassy beat in the background, and finally the third song (possibly entitled “Wonderful”) saw Carl take the front position of singer and acoustic guitar player!
If the response from the crowd was anything to go by then I would say that Madness will be releasing new material for a new album, but the music business is a strange one so we’ll have to wait and see.
The following was taken from the NME dated 6th July…
STING. WELLER. The Pistols. What is it about Finsbury Park that fast sees it overtaking Eastbourne as the place for old codgers to go and spin out their remaining days? Today it’s the turn of Madness with their annual, no-really-that’s-the-last-ever, gig. Nightnurse to Cairo anyone? Before all that though there’s a bill of younger tykes and assorted oddballs specifically designed to bamboozle the boots-and-braces brigade.
[Section about Audioweb, Catatonia, Mike Flowers, James Taylor Quartet removed to save space and my typing!]
Still, the cropped ones seem much more comfortable with SQUEEZE’s middle aged spread rock. But after “Cool For Cats” and “Up The Junction” they could fart into a trumpet and still go down better than ten pints of lager after a scraped England victory.
And so to MADNESS who, suprise, suprise, play all the hits, all the sensitive songs, and all the later stuff that no-one knows. There’s all the nutty dancing, all the banter, and these are indisputably classic pop songs, but there’s something intrinsically sad about seeing Chas Smash (the proto-Bez, kids) still pretending to be a 12-year-old overdosing on tartrazine. Ultimately this is Theme Park Britain, wherein you can indulge your adolesence once again. And surely that’s what tribute bands are for.
Stop the madness. NOW!
Saturday 31st June saw Madness support Simply Red in the Euro ’96 Final celebrations. The show was aired on BBC1, and because of the fact that Madness were merely supporting, their airtime was fairly short (about 10 minutes).
Still, Madness did have time to play “My Girl”, “It Must Be Love”, and their new song “Wonderful” which sounded superb!. Although the crowd didn’t know the words (obviously) they still aired their appreciation.
If you’re after pictures showing just what went on at the Mailing List meet in Finsbury park, then get yourself down to the following web sites to see what you missed out on or want to relive.
Well, that’s it for another month. By this time in August we should have forgotten about the antics that were “The Mailing List Meet”, and the “Madstock III” concert should be no more than a mere memory.
Hopefully the next issue of the Madpost will be on time – hopefully!!!
Right, speak to you all next month,
The Author
