Live Review : The Wildhearts + Jim Jones All Stars + Dirt Box Disco @ O2 Ritz, Manchester on March 9th 2025

The wheels have come off The Wildhearts juggernaut so often that it is a wonder they are not sponsored by kwickfit. Ginger Wildheart is a self-proclaimed difficult man to work with, who has an undeniable knack of surrounding himself with difficult to work with people. The latest reunion of the classic line lasted 4 years, 1 pandemic and 2 rather spiffing albums, grinding to a halt in 2022 in flurry of mutual acrimony. Whilst lived experience has taught us to never count The Wildhearts out, this KO felt particularly final. So we were all really rather taken a aback when an all new version of the band arose from the ashes last year. Whilst Ginger is the one constant in this iteration of the band, it is a very different version of the Geordie workhouse. This is a happier, healthier Ginger who has shed both physical and emotional weight to look, god forbid, like he is actually enjoying himself.

One thing does stay the same and that is The Wildhearts desire to select interesting opening acts. Dirt Box Disco are an explosion in a questionable dressing-up box. A flurry of self-deprecation and potty-mouthed humour. They looked at the punk band template entitled “political dissent” and decided that it was for soft southern pansies. Instead, they cast aspirations on your whole family in bad rhyming couplets. They perfectly capture this evening's atmosphere. The Ritz is never full but what the audience lacks in size it more than makes up for in acrobatic lubrication. Manchester has nine seasons and we are currently in false spring and it is obvious that a large swath of the assembled masses have spent the afternoon in dodgy beer gardens getting their fill in anticipation for this evening's entertainment. This means that Dirt Box Disco’s crude double entendre perfectly hit the spot, placating a crowd that are more than happy to bounce along to energetic three-minute ditties. The Ramones but with added northern humour, nowt better to accompany your seventh pint of the day.

If Dirt Box Disco are reminder that punk was meant to be fun, then the Jim Jones All Stars are a journey to an alternative universe where punk never happened. They trade in the big band-infused pub rock that punk purportedly trampled into extinction in the mid-seventies. This is garage rock but fused with classic R’n’b. Think The Stooges covering the soundtrack to The Commitments and you are halfway there. Jim Jones made his name in the Thee Hypnotics, who repackaged MC5 for the brit pop generation. Since their demise, he has fronted various outfits that have tried to capture the frantic madness of brass-fuelled rock n’ roll.

Jim Jones All Stars are pure frenetic energy. There is nothing minimal or refined at play here. Every track is chock full of swing and swagger. It is wave after wave of good time boogie designed to bypass your grey matter and go straight down to the dancing feet. It is brilliantly executed with a searing combination of virtuoso musicianship and vaudeville show-personship. It also works as a perfect aperitif for an audience stealing themselves to bellow along to tracks that soundtracked their youth. Entertainingly erudite.  

Let's cut to the chase, whilst Danny, CJ and Rich are nowhere to be seen, this version of The Wildhearts, feels like The Wildhearts, tastes like The Wildhearts and rocks like The Wildhearts. Ginger is a man reborn. Several times during the show he threatens to play the entire songbook and truthfully testifies that he doesn’t want to leave the stage. This is in sharp juxtaposition to the Ginger of a few years back who perpetually looked like he wanted the whole evening to be over the moment he stepped on stage. Those black clouds that for so many years had been his constant companion have been banished and we are presented with a jovial and relaxed version of the great man.

Ok, ‘Random’ has previous history with the band but both Ben Marsden and the drummer with no name are newcomers to the circus (and were only babes when the first few albums were released). Yet this collection of musicians have managed to capture exactly what The Wildhearts were all about. This is good time rock n’roll injected with both the freeform anarchy of punk and the wanton commerciality of pop. Tonight this juxtaposing mix is beautifully rendered. Cleverly a couple of bangers are heaved out first to calm the nerves and ‘I Wanna Go Where The People Go’  is treated like a messianic second coming with a flurry of crowd surfers catching the usually diligent security unawares.

It is a high-octane start that just seals the deal. The ferocity of the opening salvo means that the band have even the most cynical critics of this unexpected reboot eating from their hands. The set itself is beautifully curated even if Ginger playfully pretends not to know which albums songs come from. “When you have made as many records as I have they all blur into one” he deadpans. Actually he knows exactly what he is doing and songs from the recently released album are interspersed with both crowd-pleasing anthems (‘Vanilla Radio’ and ‘Everlone’) and anorak abating deep cuts (‘The Jackson Whites’). 

Ginger is pleased as punch with the new record stating that it is on course to be their most successful release since the nineties and heaping praise onto the boss of their record label for letting them release the 6 minute plus ‘Failure Is The Mother Of Success’ as a single. He is a man at peace with himself, content and happy and that newfound closure means that the show transforms into a celebration of both what The Wildhearts have been but more interestingly where The Wildhearts go next.

The audience sing along like their very lives depended on it. It is an interesting mix of those who have been along for the ride from the start and those that The Wildhearts picked up along the way. The front becomes a rowdy mess as elated spirits realise how much they had missed this band in their lives. Ginger feeds off this obvious ecstatic elation, just adding to his feel-good vibes. He is authentically saddened when they reach the final track of the main set and the encore is called for with a heightened level of passion, like there was some doubt whether they would return.

‘Inglorious’ is just that, a glorious riot of a sing-along chorus that further inflames the whirling dervishes up front. ‘Dislocated’ rachets up the energy and it is blatant that the band are having as much fun as the punters. Ginger’s guitar tech (he of the small sax and the inappropriate call outs to the single women of Manchester) signals that they only have time for one as the curfew beckons. Once again Ginger proclaims that if he had his way he would do this all night, but some of us have jobs to go to in the morning so ‘My Baby Is A Headfuck’ provides a chaotic final finale.

Given the turnover in members this might be a obvious statement, but The Wildhearts are a band rejuvenated. The hunger is back, the energy is back and the excitement is back. Ginger is for the first time in forever actually enjoying himself and enjoying collaborating with the people around him. Maybe a leopard can catch its spots and Ginger has finally found those easy people to work with.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
The Wildhearts + Jim Jones All Stars + Dirt Box Disco