Mark Collins is out of context. Far from the smoke-blackened, rain-lashed skies of Manchester – the northern British city where he planted his flag in the late Eighties – we find the Charlatans guitarist looking out over paradise from the window of his Portugal home. “Sun’s out,” he beams. “I’m not complaining.”
While the reborn Oasis have swung the spotlight onto Manchester of late, things have moved a little slower for the city’s other adopted sons. Technically, the Charlatans hail from the West Midlands, although Collins is a born-and-bred Mancunian, and the band’s loose-limbed grooves fit the brief.
