Mountford Hall played host to a proper Madchester reunion this week as Happy Mondays and The Farm brought their 2026 tour to Liverpool.
Before the night got going there was a bit of disappointing news, Northside had been forced to pull from a handful of the tour dates through illness.
The Farm made sure they weren’t just quietly swept under the rug though, acknowledging it to the crowd and leading a warm round of applause for the absent band.
The Farm opened under blue light, all six of them, with Peter Hooton steering the ship and a fantastic female vocalist alongside him adding serious weight to the sound. Hooton is a natural on stage, funny, sharp, at ease, and had the crowd in the palm of his hand early on. He had a go at the streamers in the room before introducing a new track from the album: “I bet you all stream, don’t you?. The vinyl fans up front got a big shout-out for their loyalty.
A cover of “Bankrobber” was a genuine highlight. Hooton explained the story behind the song, how Joe Strummer wrote it after watching Mrs. Cassidy, and dedicated it to Strummer and Mick Jones. The stage went deep red and the whole room sang “Daddy was a bank robber” with everything they had. Brilliant. “A Moment in Time“, recently voted by fans as one of the band’s finest, got a great reception too. They finished on “All Together Now” phones everywhere, voices everywhere, and Brian rounded it off by pulling out his phone and photographing the crowd. A lovely way to close.
Then it was time. The intro started building and the energy in Mountford Hall changed completely. Firouzeh Razavi appeared on stage, working the crowd into a frenzy, and just when you thought the tension couldn’t get any higher, Bez burst into view. Maracas going, running the stage, a force of pure joyful chaos. The place went absolutely mental.
Shaun Ryder sauntered on looking every inch the legend he is. Cool as you like. They opened with “Kinky Afro” and “Donovan” before the room turned red for “Grandbags Funeral.” But nothing could quite prepare you for what happened when “Step On” kicked in. Bez had the entire room jumping. Ryder’s lead-in was perfect Mondays: “Fk me, it’s that one now… you’re twisting my melon man, call the fking cops.”
What you don’t expect, and what makes them so endearing, is just how honest Shaun is on stage. During “Holiday“, all blue and orange lights, he cheerfully admitted they hadn’t played it in ages and was reading the lyrics off the autocue. Later, before “Rave On” kicked in with its gorgeous jungle flute, he squinted at the setlist and asked the band: “What’s this one about?” It’s the sort of thing that shouldn’t work. But somehow it absolutely does.
The set moved through “Mad Cyril” and a purple-drenched “Jungle Fudge” before the whole night built to its peak. “24 Hour Party People” was everything, maracas, madness, dancing, the crowd completely lost in it.
And then, without a word, Shaun Ryder was gone. No thank you, no “you’ve been wonderful Liverpool,” nothing. He simply left the stage, leaving Bez to fill the silence, doing his best to say goodbye to the crowd before he too left the stage. The audience were left looking at each other, unsure whether this was all part of the act, whether the band were coming back on. They weren’t. As the lights slowly came up, the crowd drifted out, a little flat, a little confused, and more than a little deflated after what had been, up to that point, a brilliant night.
It’s a shame, because everything before that moment deserved a proper send-off. Happy Mondays are still a fantastic live act, but on this occasion Mountford Hall was left wanting just a little bit more.