Manchester Boardwalk

HEY, Dean, who's the big scary guy?

"He is big and scary, isn't he?"

He's the biggest, scariest guy we've seen in years. He looms threateningly in the background, keen to remain unobtrusive. Nevertheless, you feel the weight of his protection. His name's Nick and he's Curve's one-night security, made necessary by Manc scallies so enraged by the suggestion that Curve sounded the death-knell of Madchester they inundated the band's press office with death-threats. Tonight should be a goodie.

It's crowded. Christ, is it crowded. This is one of those rare occasions where the gig is best viewed from the midst of the throng as opposed to merely heard from the comfort of the bar. Unfortunately everybody knows that so the throng's a dense, impenetrable mass of sweating flesh. The only spare square inches happen to be beside the Carlsberg pump or, as one of us discovered to his huge discomfort, in the smoke-machine.

The smoke's billowing across the Boardwalk a good twenty minutes before the band hits the stage. And f***, do they hit the stage. They're greeted like the Second Coming. Exactly like the Second Coming. Fifty percent go nuts (the band haven't played a note but it's like they're all screaming "We told you so!"), the other fifty percent just look guilty. The doubters, the unbelievers better have a taste for their own words because they're gonna be eating them tonight.

Just one look at Curve convinces you of how utterly and brilliantly invaluable they are. Toni's wearing black slacks, a black polo-neck and a huge silver peace-pendant. She's dressed like Emma Peel from the Avengers. Dressed for serious action. Dressed to kill. Dean, as usual, looks impeccably intense. Alex is a big, mean thrash-merchant and Debbie a petite feedback fetishist. She spends virtually the whole set shoving her guitar (and herself) into the speakers.

Chris Roberts remarked to us recently how implausible all this was, that a band should look so great. Have so many great songs, be such great people. But surely this is what the world's been waiting for - a group that stretches our powers of analysis to breaking-point, a group so great it's difficult to love them enough. Oh yes, the heart knows a reason reason knows nothing about.

The songs, ten of them, each a deffo Top Ten, are so good it's almost criminal to remember what order they came in. That they happen at all is more than enough, more than we deserve.

Both guitars cut out during the vertiginous pan-pipe opening of "Coast Is Clear", the new single. Everything stops. No-one can believe it. For f**k's sake, it's like coitus interruptus. Then it starts again and you almost weep at your good fortune at having heard that intro twice. And then you're plunged into tumbling waves of guitar. Melodies bend at the most unexpected points, giving way to new tunes, new ideas, new directions, new perceptions. It's like we're all extras in a musical "Tron".

We're still arguing about whether "Coast Is Clear" is the best song ever written when they kick into "The Colour Hurts" and that confuses the issue. It's slow, brooding and has a chorus so sexy and dangerous it's intimidating. "Why do you grow inside me?", sung by a girl dressed like Emma Peel. It's too much.

Somewhere towards the end of a set we're told lasted approximately forty minutes (again it would be gauche to know for sure) they do "Ten Little Girls", rendering it more savage, more gorgeous than we could've believed possible. When it comes to JC001's rap, Toni does it so well you kind of wish she was miming it. No-one should be this bright. Shit, the bitch can rap.

There's no encore. Not even Curve could follow that.

Best news of the week is that the "Frozen" EP looks set to go straight into the national charts at Number 20. Higher up and further in.

Only the crowd were blown away.

review by The Stud Brothers (nicked from 'Melody Maker', dated 25 May 1991)