Happy Mondays
Brighton Dome
★★★★☆

SHAUN RYDER has had his share of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, not to mention pills ’n’ thrills and bellyaches.

The reformed Happy Mondays frontman, who has been the picture of unhealth over the years, recently revealed that he loves touring now the sex and drugs have gone. He and his maracas-shaking mascot Bez — real name Mark Berry — would often perform high on ecstasy pills and the rest.

So while seeing the Madchester icons, who are back on the road to mark the 35th anniversary of their breakthrough album Pills ’N’ Thrills And Bellyaches, might be a more sober affair, they’re as colourful a motley crew as they were in their ’90s acid-rave heyday.

Giving a complete run-through of the album that so consummately captured the culture’s zeitgeist is like being transported back to that era; an album that may as well be their greatest hits given that it features most of the band’s best known tunes.

Shaun’s distinctive sprechgesang (spoken-singing style) is in all its drawly glory on Kinky Afro (“Yippee-ippee-ey-ey-ay-yey-yey”) and God’s Cop (“God made it easy on meeee”), while the constant energetic presence of Bez dances in front of a pop-arty Happy Mondays logo backdrop surrounded in splattered florescent paint.

The pair are the most hilarious double act. Bez, high octane even off drugs, is the perfect foil to Shaun’s aloof charm. Shaun needs occasional help to read from a set-list at his feet so he knows what song to start singing next.

Bez’s wife Firouzeh Berry, who replaces Rowetta as the soulful backing singer, sings the roof off on Step On and, alongside lead guitarist Mark Day’s spaced-out riffs, delivers some of the album’s most psychedelic moments (Grandbag’s Funeral, Loose Fit, Dennis And Lois, Bob’s Yer Uncle and Holiday).

They finish off by throwing a few from their hypnotic 1988 album Bummed (Mad Cyril, Rave On and Wrote For Luck) as well as 24-hour Party People, the song that defined the age.

Bez summed it up in a recent interview: “The unreal thing is simply that we’re actually still in the band… after all this time.

“That’s the bit that blows my mind. The fact that we survived it all, physically and mentally, is unbelievable.”

Pills ’N’ Thrills And Bellyaches is on tour until April 24. For dates, venues and tickets see: happymondaysofficial.co.uk.