
April and May 1987 saw The Wedding Present out on tour across the UK, mostly at student union venues, while the following month they were a late replacement, well down the bill, at Glastonbury after Red Lorry Yellow Lorry had to pull out unexpectedly. Otherwise, the time was spent, writing, rehearsing and eventually recording the songs for the debut album.
A few weeks in advance of the album, a new single was released as a taster:-
mp3: The Wedding Present – Anyone Can Make A Mistake
Maybe it was around this time that someone cracked the line ‘all the songs sound the same’, to which the smart reply has to be ‘maybe….but it’s a helluva song isn’t it?’ Anyone Can Make A Mistake didn’t deviate too far from the tried and tested, but perhaps the one minor criticism on offer is that it wasn’t quite as brilliant as My Favourite Dress (but then again, what possibly could be?)
This one came out on 7″ and 12″, as well as on cassette, which was a limited edition with a free Reception Records badge. The 7″ had one b-side, but the other formats had two additional songs
mp3: The Wedding Present – All About Eve
mp3: The Wedding Present – Getting Nowhere Fast
The interesting thing about the latter is the fact it’s a cover version, something that the band would increasingly become famed for in the succeeding years. This one is of a song originally released back in 1980 by Girls At Our Best, a short-lived but much-loved post-punk band from Leeds. The decision by TWP to cover the song re-ignited interest in Girls At Our Best (they had broken up in 1982), one that has been maintained through to recent times with Optic Nerve, the Preston-based label which specialises in re-releases from the golden eras of indie-pop, giving said treatment to Pleasure, the band’s sole album from 1981.















