In 2025, The Wedding Present will be playing a series of concert dates in North America to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the release of their classic major-label debut long-player, Bizarro [“Simply unbeatable” – Melody Maker].   David Gedge says “Bizarro was our second album, and you can hear on it how much we had learned from the experience of recording our debut, George Best. You only have to listen to something like ‘Bewitched’ to notice that there’s much more in the way of texture and depth on Bizarro. We’d just improved as songwriters and arrangers, basically. It’s no less frenetic a record, though!”   Bizarro reviewed by AllMusic:   “The Wedding Present’s second proper studio album, Bizarro, [RCA Records, 1989] cut down on the frenetic jangle that the band had been known for in its early days and replaced it with healthy doses of darkness and power. Adding some fuzzy, crunchy, distortion to give the guitars some hefty impact, slowing the tempos down to speeds that allowed vocalist David Gedge to squeeze more heartbroken despair and bleak sarcasm out of every line, and generally upping their game in every way, the album was the fullest realisation of The Wedding Present’s sound yet. Leading off with the unstoppably hooky ‘Brassneck’ which features a brilliant Gedge reading of lines that rhyme “grow up” and “throw up”, the album plays like a collection of thematically related singles. The most single-y among them is ‘Kennedy’ which has some brilliant sing-along lyrics and an intensely dramatic guitar strum build-up that crescendos into a maelstrom of sound. The rest of the record isn’t far behind; whether it’s the sparse ‘What Have I Said Now?’ or the slowly grinding ‘Bewitched’, one could extract any song and it would feel like a highlight... especially the epic-length ‘Take Me!’ which closes the album in a fury of strums, drum fills and chugging bass that builds and builds until it seems like the song is going to levitate and take the listener right along with it. The Wedding Present didn’t necessarily need to improve their already-winning template, but they did, and it pays off big time on Bizarro. Track-listing: Brassneck / Crushed / No / Thanks / Kennedy / What Have I Said Now? / Granadaland / Bewitched / Take Me! / Be Honest   www.theweddingpresent.co.uk   “The boy Gedge has written some of the best love songs of the ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ era. You may dispute this but I’m right and you’re wrong!” – John Peel

Mark Robinson is an indie-rock musician from Washington, D.C. who founded Teen-Beat in 1984. Best known for founding Unrest (with Phil Krauth and Tim Moran), he has also been a member of Air Miami, Flin Flon, Grenadine, and currently plays with Evelyn Hurley (Blast Off Country Style) in Cotton Candy and also with D. Trevor Kampmann as Fang Wizard. He has released a number of solo records. His recordings are typically sparse, often based around a carefully controlled guitar.