Press and Interviews

Probably the best news, musically speaking, to come out of Manchester this year: the wonderful Creepers are back in business, hard as nails and twice as brash - warts 'n' all.

Playing a distinctly home leg at the boardwalk this evening, nutters are unconfined and the fun is on. One distinct improvement in Audience Antics is that the singularly unsavoury habit of 'gobbing' has been replaced by the infitely preferable 'chucking hundred of bits of paper'. The risk of disease is thereby reduced considerably.

The Creepers, being a bunch with the exception of the drummer, are an ugly, noisy group - the perfect foils, in fact for the blunt bard of Barnsley (no, I know he doesn't, but it fitted in so well). Together they are noisy, raw, powerful and a huge pleasure to watch, retaining so much of the early spirit of the Fall (from whence Mr Riley hails), but you knew that already), long-ago lost by that particular 'anti-pop stance' institution.

'Play For Me', 'Baby Paints', and their own distinctive version of Eno's 'Baby's On Fire', are millstones of excellence. And for the first time in over 12 months of toiling over a hot stage, almost an hour elapsed without your correspondent even noticing, let alone looking at his watch, and this can't be bad.

Marc Riley And The Creepers currently fly the flag for a fast-receding idea; they enjoy themselves and so do the audience. This, combined with some great songs and perhaps some of the worst keyboard playing I've ever witnessed, must surely bode well.

(Dave Sexton, Record Mirror, 4 October 1986)