All about Andy celebrates the life of the late Andy Rourke

All About Andy

Manchester Star and Garter

May 17/18

A weekend festival dedicated to the ‘life and work’ of the late The Smiths bassist Andy Rourke sees an emotional and celebratory event with some very special guests. 

The recent loss of the much loved Andy Rourke was a reminder that the Smiths, like all great groups, were very much the sum of all their parts. Even if Morrissey/Marr was the core, those songs would not have been anywhere near the same without the exquisite melodic bass lines from the bassist and also his persona, presence and dry wit, which were the kind of great leveller that all bands need. 

The weekend event was a celebration of Andy with DJs spinning Smiths classics and covers bands like The Smiths Utd playing the hits and deep cuts as well as providing the chassis for several guests to sing the Smiths catalogue. 

With all their deliberate, reflective points and cultural nods, The Smiths had a keen sense of creating history from the minute they started. Already a pop culture fiend and budding pop journo, Morrissey knew how to plant the seeds of devoted fandom and curate the band’s own narrative. The annual events are normally much more than a moribund museum of past flickering shadows and more a bacchanalian embrace of pop culture with a Smithsonian twist. The band themselves were always a conflict between nostalgia for an age that never happened and nostalgia for an age yet to come, as Buzzcocks – perhaps the prime influence – once sang. Decades later, this detailed sense of story with a great soundtrack is perfect for the lovingly put together annual Smiths event at the Star and Garter which, this year could only be all about Andy.

The event, curated by author and promoter Julie Hamill, is always big on detail and has a deep understanding of the combination of the magic in the music and the reaching for the stars that made the Smiths so off-kilter attractive. It’s a perfect snapshot of the messy drunken good times of pop youth long gone and the literate smarts of the fabled group and a deeply personal attachment to pop culture at its best. Julie is a fan’s fan and deeply understands how pop culture ticks and that the devil that is in the detail elevates nights like these to more than mundane tread throughs of old songs. 

This year, of course, has an added poignancy as it remembers Andy Rourke and also the Star and Garter pub which has its own recent past to deal with with the recent death of Andy Martin – the pub’s typically Manc landlord with his wry wit and deep love of music who died on March 29 this year.

All About Andy is a fab celebration of a life well lived with stories about Andy, his photos on the walls and his friends and his brothers who join the merry international throng to take over the city centre boozer in a perfect moment to reflect on the much loved local musician. 

This is not a morose wake but a celebration of a much loved icon in the Manchester musical story. The guests who have been brought in to sing the songs and twist and turn and unzip the classics inside out, giving many different facets to the Smiths catalogue whilst reminiscing about Mr. Rourke.

Fast-rising Keeley is first up with the band and brings a super fan charisma to the proceedings and sings the songs like her life depends on it. Twisting and turning the songs like Hand In Glove or This Charming Man around and giving the often complex multi-layered yet always darkly humorous nuanced words a magnetic enthusiasm. This mini section ends with Jenny Drag from The Priscillas whose crystal clear voice cuts through the ancient fug of the venue and is spellbinding with a drop dead gorgeous torchlight version of I Don’t Owe You Anything. 

Then there is a short break from the music as Julie Hamill conducts an in-conversation with Andy’s brothers Phil and Chris, who are as dry and wry and charming as their late brother, before Inspiral Carpets singer Stephen Holt closes the night with a perfect take on the complexities of the Moz voice on songs like Handsome Devil whilst never disappearing into the iconic bequiffed one’s shadow.

Also sold out, Saturday sees another in conversation with Smiths drummer Mike Joyce before Badly Drawn Boy delivered a beautiful take on Nowhere Fast, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out and a mini acoustic set of some of his own songs that he had played with Andy when they toured together with the former Smiths bassist being part of his band. 

Badly Drawn Boy’s songs underline just what an emotive and personal songwriter he really is whilst perfectly completing his touching and moving stories about touring with Andy. The bearded singer remains an emotional conduit and really captures the emotive undertow of the event and just what the bassist really meant to everyone who met him.

Andy was not just a great musician and a photogenic presence in the perfectly curated band but also a down-to-earth genial, and hilarious presence who made everyone feel at ease with his down to earth warmth and wit.

Everyone has lovely memories of him. I would bump into him often near his flat in Castlefield for years before he moved to New York whilst I was jogging along the canal and we would talk of music and life and his current post Smiths projects. 

Like everyone on stage or in the audience relates – it was always a pleasure to see or hear Andy.

And this is a weekend that embraces that legend.

And human being.

For once the spotlight moved to the side of the stage.

It’s.

All About Andy.