If you had been asked, in 1986, which of the year’s crop of indie bands would become huge mainstream stars – and in the process make such a dramatic and lasting impact that they would fill arena-sized venues 35 years later – you would have got very long odds on it being Happy Mondays.
If the band was considered by the music press at all, it was as another example of Factory Records’ bizarre attitude to A&R; their willingness to spend money made by New Order on peculiarly named Manchester bands that clearly weren’t going to replicate their success: Red Turns To …, Biting Tongues, Stockholm Monsters.
