Imagine the life-affirming sounds of the New Orleans funeral parade blasting out the defining sounds of the 90s club classics in the streets of Manchester – Louis Armstrong taking on the techno of 808 State or King Oliver reinventing Massive Attack.
If you can then you might just be ready for Mr Wilson’s Second Liners – one of the UK festival circuit’s more exciting live acts guaranteed to rock any crowd as hard as the most experienced DJ.
Mr Wilson’s Second Liners – named out of respect to the late Tony Wilson – will be making a public appearance during Manchester Jazz Festival playing club classics in the style of a New Orleans funeral cortege parading through the streets of Manchester on the evening of July 26th.
WHAT – Mr Wilson’s Second Liners will perform a funeral march through the streets of Manchester’s Northern Quarter before their gig at Matt & Phred’s
WHERE – Outside Matt & Phred’s Jazz Club, Tib Street, Manchester
WHEN – 9pm, Saturday 26th July
In New Orleans, funerals are celebrated in style, with noisy brass bands processing through the streets. The main section of the funeral parade is known as the First Line, but the iconic imagery of a New Orleans Funeral March – the charismatic musicians and twirling parasols – lies in the Second Line.
Much more than a rabble of tag-along noisemakers, Second Liners celebrate the life that has passed, breathing life into the emotions experienced by their kin.
Contagious with enthusiasm for the art of the original Second Liners, musician and bandleader Will Lenton pulled together a troupe of distinguished Northern players to form a unique funeral march band in 2012. But it was his idea of playing iconic dance tracks over the slow hymns that transformed Mr Wilson’s Second Liners from traditional outfit to revolutionary mash up of sounds and styles.
In the last couple of years Mr. Wilsons Second Liners has evolved to become an anarchic spectacle, bursting with colour and sound, inciting impromptu raves and rousing audiences into a joyful frenzy. The funeral cortege they follow is the diehard days of the Hacienda, 90s club culture and its greatest hero, Factory Records own Tony Wilson.
But this is no gimmick. Both musical genres excel at creating excitement and euphoria that brings people up and together just at the right time. The result is joyful and compulsive noise with the big band sparkle of a Mancunian Sun Ra Arkestra.
In true New Orleans style, they are first and foremost a street band. Their music triggers dancing in the streets. Ambushing the unsuspecting public during their national tour of street theatre festival in 2013 was wonderful apprenticeship in Second Lining.
Mr Wilson’s Second Liners will be also playing at Matt & Phred’s in the Northern Quarter, Manchester on the evening of July 26th at 9.30pm
