The 12 Legged Groove Machine...

Occasional Albums Thing 089 - The Wonder Stuff “Groovers On Manoeuvres”

On Monday the 3rd October 1988 The Wonder Stuff commenced their first headlining tour of the UK at Coventry Polytechnic. The tour, to support the release of their debut album “The Eight Legged Groove Machine” on 15th August, was entitled “Groovers On Manoeuvres”. 

38 years later (WHAT !!!), almost to the day, on 1st October 2026 The Wonder Stuff released a double live album titled “Groovers On Manoeuvres”, recordings drawn not from that original 1988 headlining tour but recorded at Birmingham Academy, Manchester Ritz and London Shepherd’s Bush Empire on the 17th, 18th and 19th December 2025. It’s a career spanning 23 track collection covering songs from “The Eight Legged Groove Machine” right up to their most recent release, 2018’s “Better Being Lucky”.

It begins, as many a Wonder Stuff show has begun over the last 40 years, with one of the very first songs they wrote together, “Red Berry Joy Town”, and it is blistering. This performance could save you all the money you ever spent on one of those hairdryer type thingies to remove gloss paint from door frames, it’s that hot ! And let’s not forget this is a band approaching (at these gigs) their 40th year together, there is seemingly no let up in their need to delight and entertain their audience while simultaneously pinning them to the back wall of the venue with ferocious performances like this.

OK there have been numerous line-up changes over the years. Miles and Malc are the two remaining original members but let’s not forget that Erica has been a member of the band for longer than anyone but those two (over 20 years !), we all knew the mighty Pete Howard and Tim Sewell were a rhythm section of the highest quality from their days in Eat and Mark Gemini Thwaite has added much to the overall sound and, spookily, resurrected the spirit of the Bass Thing with the way he prowls around stage right. This is a band at the top of their game right now.

The track/set list on this album is a perfect encapsulation of what you might expect at a Wonder Stuff show and, having been mixed by the bands live sound engineer Simon Efemey, it’s likely as close as you will get to being in the room without being in the room to hear the hits and the stunners from their more recent records. With their 3 guitar attack (shades of Lynyrd Skynyrd ?) the sound is full and songs old and new benefit from it. 

I’m not gonna go through “Groovers On Manoeuvres” track by track but would you indulge me while I evangelise for a moment about one song ? “The Guy With The Gift” is taken from The Wonder Stuff’s most recent new album, 2018’s “Better Being Lucky”, it’s Miles’ thank you to the influence of his musical heroes (“You've fallen from heights that I will surely never reach, While you were swimming in oceans, man, I was here on the beach”), a beautiful song, Erica’s violin sings throughout but it reaches its climax with something I’m not often fond of, a guitar solo. During the current tour I’ve become somewhat obsessed with watching MGT breaking out this gorgeous solo while Miles walks over and faces him up. Corny ? Maybe but it’s stunning and not to be missed. 

When I wrote about “Better Being Lucky” back in 2024 I told you I’d stepped away from The Wonder Stuff and their crew due to pandemics and other niggles. But here we are in 2026, pandemic free and me recovered from knee surgery, Miles invited me back into the belly of the beast and I’m once again touring with the band. This album sounds exactly like what I’m privileged to hear every night they play. They are on tour right now, as I type, right through until December. If you were umming and ahhhing about whether or not to go, don’t be an idiot and go buy a ticket today, and if you’re reading this and thinking “I’ve never seen The Wonder Stuff” then take my tip, go buy a ticket today, it might just change your world…and as the t-shirt says “God bless the fucking lot of us” x

The Guy With The Gift - https://youtu.be/AasOjr3aCG8?si=lyXYhYcC2lFU0Cq6