The Meltdown Festival's tribute to Tony Wilson was a lot like the charismatic post-punk legend himself: funny, eccentric, obscure, populist; all over the place but never dull. Wilson died in August 2007 and this event was a reminder of his reputation as one of music's most fascinating post-punk provocateurs, giving the world Joy Division, Happy Mondays and more. It was also a reminder of his reputation, as poet Mike Garry put it, as a "knobhead". As someone who appeared on regional news programmes quoting Wordsworth while hang-gliding, Wilson could be spectacularly uncool.
Proceedings, hosted by writer Paul Morley, began with the first of three excerpts from a filmed interview with Wilson shot by Morley's sister Carol in 2005. The sound quality was not great, due to background traffic and Wilson's recalcitrant barking dog, but one learnt some intriguing facts about his history. His mother became pregnant when she was 46 and was advised to have an abortion. She refused and Wilson was born prematurely. He always did like being ahead of his time. During the interview he also moaned about the fact that no one was buying British hip hop, which he loved. Little did he know grime and dubstep were just around the corner.
The first live guest was Kevin Hewick, the Leicester singer-songwriter who found himself gigging alongside Joy Division just before the devastating suicide of Ian Curtis in 1980. Hewick's recollections of being signed to Wilson's Factory Records underlined how long ago 1980 is. He posted an audio cassette to Wilson, who liked it and replied "by telegram". Hewick never made it big, but still has an ear for an idea, as he demonstrated on stage with a mini-song cycle about Wilson, which included the night's pivotal line: "The plan was there was no plan". Factory was a record label run by men who knew nothing about running a record label. That's what made it so special.
Hewick was followed by Mike Garry, a witty Mancunian poet with flowing Byronic locks. For a moment I thought it was actually Steve Coogan, who was cast as Wilson in 24 Hour Party People, playing a specially created character for the night. In fact Garry was genuine and sincere in his admiration for Wilson, even though he regarded him as a comic figure as well as a culturally important one. But then comedy and Wilson seem to dance hand in hand. Joy Division's "Atmosphere" featured in the opening episode of The Trip and as well as Coogan’s Alan Partridge-esque portrayal of Wilson, Bernard Manning cut the ribbon to open his seminal nightclub the Hacienda.
After the interval Morley introduced designer Peter Saville, who is now the keeper of the Factory flame. When Wilson died there was a scramble to capitalise on his legacy. Saville now makes sure everything is fitting and above board. Looking far more debonair than a man in his fifties has any right to look, he praised Wilson's contribution to the regeneration of Manchester as a post-industrial city. Put simply, Manchester would not be the vibrant place it is today without this man schooled in critical theory, Engels and The Ramones.
As the evening started to overrun there was another final excerpt from Carol Morley's Wilson film, which included the two funniest moments of the night. Firstly when we saw the man who gave the world New Order struggling desperately to get his dog into the back of his car, and secondly when Wilson revealed one of his major regrets – that he had not flown to Barbados to see Sean Ryder of Happy Mondays carrying a sofa out of Eddy Grant's recording studio to sell it to buy crack. Wilson did not think he could have stopped Ryder, he just wished he'd seen it happen. Wilson's problem getting his dog into his car seemed to echo his problem getting Happy Mondays to behave. But at least his dog was not on drugs.
It would have been good to have had someone like Ryder on stage giving his side of the Wilson myth. Instead, the closing act was Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. An odd choice because they a) were from Liverpool and b) left Factory pretty quickly after one single. Three decades on, however, Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys made perfect sense as they raced through their hits, from their first single, "Electricity", to their most famous anthem, "Enola Gay". Their Kraftwerk-meets-ABBA melodies sounded as fresh as ever and McCluskey's dancing was as squirm-inducing as ever. The singer recalled that when they joined Factory they thought they were an experimental band, while Wilson thought they were a pop group. He may have been a knobhead without a plan, but once again, he was proved correct.
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