Lee Mavers of The La’s took to the stage in Manchester tonight (June 19) for his first live appearance in over two years.
Accompanied on bass by Gary Murphy of defunct Liverpool band The Bandits, the elusive scouse legend played a 15-song set including classics ‘Timeless Melody’, ‘Feelin” and ‘There She Goes’ at a secret gig at The Deaf Institute. He was playing a support slot to Hyde & Beast at the venue.
Rumours began circling earlier in the day that a band billed as Lee Rude & The Velcro Underpants was in fact a pseudonym for Mavers, making his live comeback. Despite the lack of publicity a number of The La’s devotees made it to the venue, having picked up on internet speculation about the show.
A number of websites and social networking groups, Thelasofficial.com, Facebook.com/the-las-official and Twitter.com/thelasofficial, had been set up in the days prior to the show. The internet activity has led to speculation that a full comeback could be on the cards, but the Manchester show gave little clues about that possibility.
Mavers seemed relaxed and amiable on stage at the venue, even breaking off to perform a drum workout at one point. He didn’t play new material at the gig, leaning heavily on The La’s only, self-titled album, that came out in 1990.
The last time he played in public was in 2009, the year in which he performed with Pete Doherty on The Libertines man’s solo tour. Prior to that he had made sporadic live appearances with Babyshambles and Reverend & The Makers members, and had played a La’s reunion tour in 2005.
