THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part Fifty-Three)

The hard work and efforts of the lockdown period, as mentioned in last week’s posting, delivered something quite special for fans in early 2021 with the release of the  album Locked Down And Stripped Back. It contained twelve songs, of which ten were new takes on some classics, while two were completely new altogether, albeit one of them was a cover version.

All the songs had involved each band member – David Gedge, Jon Stewart, Melanie Howard and Chris Hardwick –  recording their parts at home under lock-down restrictions.  It had stemmed from The Wedding Present‘s contribution to the 2020 At The Edge Of The Sea Festival, by necessity an ‘on line event’, in which songs had been re-worked in a semi-acoustic style, with the tunes and films then stitched together for broadcasting.  Here’s how California, a single from 1992 turned out.

Jon Stewart, formerly of Sleeper, was now very much part of The Wedding Present, and the cover version mentioned above was of one of his old band’s songs, but with the twist that Sleeper had never got round to recording it.  An approach was made to Louise Wener to ask if she would consider duetting with David Gedge on the version that The Wedding Present were proposing to make as part of the Lockdown project, and to everyone’s delight, she agreed. The album, was very well received, particularly the collaboration on the cover version.

By mid-late 2021, things were returning towards a degree of normality, and live shows, with restricted numbers, became a possibility again. The Wedding Present wasted no time in getting back on the road and played a total of 19 shows in the UK and Ireland across August, October and November.  It was during the middle part of the tour that news came out of an exciting project for 2022.

It was called 24 Songs, and it echoed what had happened back in 1992, with a new limited edition 7″ single being issued each month.  They would be issued by the Leeds-based Clue Records and made available in shops across the UK, along with an option to subscribe in advance and receive a signed postcard with each delivery along with the promise that a specially designed box would arrive during the year in which the newly acquires single could be stored.

You can probably guess which option I took!!!

The first single arrived on 21 January 2022. It was a re-recording of the Sleeper cover that had proved such a hit on the Locked Down album:-

mp3: The Wedding Present (featuring Louise Wener) – We Should Be Together

The flip side was a track that had been written and occasionally performed back in 2019, with the writing credits including two former members of the band – Danielle Wadey and Charles Layton.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Don’t Give Up Without A Fight

It was an appropriate song with which to make the studio comeback, and yes, I agree entirely with the promo blurb that came with the release that Don’t Give Up Without A Fight combines classic Wedding Present feistiness with a Krautrock finale.

And so, we are now on the final stages of this epic journey through the singles from The Wedding Present.  Please stay in your seats with your seatbelts securely fastened until we do finally come to a halt….which will be sometime in early 2025

JC