Saturday Live

Last Saturday's Saturday Live slot had Happy Mondays in seriously fine form on Tony Wilson's legendary Granada TV music programme The Other Side Of Midnight. Wilson had a certain amount of sway by the late 80s but his bosses were still pushing his music programmes to the late night slots, out of harm's way. The Other Side Of Midnight ran from June 1988 through to July 1989. The end of series party, broadcast on 23rd July 1989, was filmed at the Quay Street studios, Wilson introducing the show and the set transformed into a full blown 061 rave. Wilson tries to flog a OSM t- shirt and then we're into T- Coy, the Mancunian/ Latin house trio of Mike Pickering, Simon Topping (ex- ACR) and Ritchie Close, and their superb Carino. As was often the case at the time, the crowd are the stars as much as those on stage, the shots of the dancers bringing 1989 right back. 

T- Coy are followed by A Guy Called Gerald and and the British house record that beats all others, Voodoo Ray. Then we have the Mondays, Shaun slurring instructions in broadest Salfordian, 'turn it up, I said I like that, turn it up'. Later on they play Wrote For Luck, the corwd full of hair being grown out, whistles being blown and limbs waving. This all took place on an afternoon at the bottom end of Castlefield.