The Wedding Present : ‘Live 1994’ The continuation of the live album series from The Wedding Present
20th May 2024The Wedding Present are set to release ‘Live 1994’, the latest instalment in a series that began with ‘Live 1987’. Each album in the series features a collection of live recordings from the respective year.
To be released by Clue Records on 21 June 2024, ‘Live 1994’ is a 17-track collection featuring a live show recorded in full at La Laiterie in Strasbourg, France. Previously only released on cassette, it showcases the unrelenting raw brilliance of The Wedding Present live and will be available as a CD and on streaming services. Pre-order here.
David Gedge – “As The Wedding Present became more well known in the late 1980s, the number of people in the audience at concerts wasn’t the only thing that increased. We also saw an abundance of people selling cassettes that had been illicitly recorded at those shows. At first, we felt flattered and, I suppose, kind of famous, but, after we’d listened to a few, we realised that some bloke holding a Walkman in the crowd was never going to produce a good quality recording. And also, that that bloke was then going on to make money from our fans by selling substandard Wedding Present products! So we decided to combat this by releasing our own versions. Between 1987 and 1996, whenever there was some kind of recording device hooked up to the mixing desk at a venue, we would pop in a chrome audio cassette or digital audio tape [DAT] and record the show.
”After each tour I would then painstakingly listen to them all – such is my unwavering devotion to my art – and pick the best ones to release. In this way, the band’s ‘Official Live Bootleg’ cassette series came to be. We released sixteen of them in total – one or two every year – and, since 2007, I have been working through the pile of tapes and having them re-mastered to be released on CD. We’re now up to 1994 and have arrived in Strasbourg, France, where the thirteenth cassette was recorded. It’s from the celebrated venue La Laiterie, which we played at again a couple of years ago, actually. But this is from our first visit and, given that it came three months after we’d released our fourth studio album, ‘Watusi’, the set features songs from that record together with earlier material. The versions on this live recording are considerably more energetic and electric than the album versions, though!”
The music is pulled from an extensive archive held by The Wedding Present’s founder and ongoing driving force David Lewis Gedge. Having been pleased and encouraged by the quality of the live recordings in his archive, David has hinted there is more to come from this series.
Tracklisting:
So Long, Baby
Blue Eyes
It’s A Gas
Flying Saucer
Let Him Have It
Dalliance
Click Click
The Queen Of Outer Space
Spangle (Rock Version)
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
Loveslave
Silver Shorts
Suck
Come Play With Me
Crawl
Gazebo (Rock Version)
Catwoman
Watusi 30 Tour
Also celebrating its 30th birthday this year is The Wedding Present’s fourth studio album, ‘Watusi’. The band are currently halfway through a tour playing the album in its entirety and the remaining dates are as below.
May 2024
22 Aberdeen – Lemon Tree
23 Glasgow – Room 2 SOLD OUT
24 Manchester – Academy 2
25 Sheffield – Leadmill
26 Bristol – Marble Factory
August 2024
9 Brighton – Concorde 2
On this tour, the band will be playing all twelve tracks from ‘Watusi’ along with a selection of other songs from their extensive repertoire in a 90-minute set. Support comes from Welsh indie-rockers Melys at all dates except Brighton.
