What Did It Mean?

15/07/07

Just as the crowd are leaving the arena after a rousing performance by the Gossip (after a day of sets by the likes of the Horrors and New Young Pony Club), we chance upon the three most stylish ladies in the whole damn place - well, at least since Beth's stage wear got lost somewhere between here and Barcelona.

We meet Farha (18), Taz (20) and Asma (18), all from Manchester, and all major fans of the Horrors. They are all both impossibly glamorous and enormously cool.

What did you think of today?

“It was awesome,” says Taz. “It was worth the wait. I really enjoyed the Horrors. I kinda hurt myself as well. I was stood frontline and I kept getting all these crowd surfers bumping my head.”

“The Gossip fans were like, lethal,” adds Asma.

“And I hugged Beth,” says Farha. “I spent five minutes with my head in her boobs. It was a bit much.”

“We've seen the Horrors like five times,” adds Taz. “We've even got to hang out with them backstage - not tonight though. They're really nice guys.”

What do you like about them?

“The music,” decides Taz.

“And the image,” says Asma.

“But mainly the music,” Taz tells me.

“I like the image,” says Asma, undeterred.

“They've got their own thing going on, there's no one else sounds like them,” says Farha.

“And I like the capes,” says Asma.

“They were awesome today, really inspiring,” enthuses Taz. “He's a really good front man. They played one new song and the beginning and another one in the middle of the set that we didn't recognise either.

“When they came on, everyone went mad. They rushed towards the front and there was a huge pit. But we were at the Virgin megastore gig and some guy was supposed to have broken his arm. They blamed it on me, but it definitely wasn't me.”

Big fans of bands like the Cramps, Pil, Joy Division (they have their own band, the Necrophiliacs, see myspace.com/the3necrophiliacs, and their rather excellent band motto is “we dig dead guys”) the ever-tasteful girls went to see Howard Devoto's Sex Pistols film in the festival pavilion, “but it was just film and no music. We didn't like that.

“And we wanted to go see Monkey: Journey to the West, but we couldn't get tickets, and we couldn't really afford it anyway. We watched a TV programme on it instead.”

So, what are your favourite things about Manchester?

“The music,” they say as one.

“It's all happening here,” says Taz.

“The music and the people,” says Asma.

That's good enough for me. Can I take some pictures?

Cue pandemonium.

“Oh, look at the state of us!”

“My hair's a mess! What will people think?”

And then they strike a pose like the rock'n'roll stars they so clearly are.